[renegade2]

If they look okay, they probably are. Mine didn't even look okay.

I'm no expert but I agree. I have fired 7.62x39 that was so cruddy it was not only green it was green with lumps (so not steel cased). Several I had to scrape the 'bumps' off of them to get them to chamber. The SKS didn't care, they went in the short end and then left via the long end.

 

[BarryHalls]

In this exercise, though, we're talking "crappiest" not "cheapest". We're at a weird point now that many bargain brands are great, but some of the name brand and no-name brand are a totally different story.
I've had two batches of Isreali IWI blow primers, several calibers of Winchester that were either filthy, wildly inconsistent, or made with such low quality brass that they didn't run reliably in semi-autos at all, Blazer aluminum case that stovepiped constantly in some of my guns, several American-made bargain brands that popped up through the years with questionable quality control, and several foreign-made ammunitions from Arabic and Latin countries that disapeared almost as quickly as they arrived.

PMC is "adequate" and PPU is somewhere in the top bracket.

Heck, the current "lawyer-loaded" rounds made by most American companies won't even cycle in nearly an entire generation of semi-auto pistols. I generally have had good luck with Remington, for example, but I can't reliably run a Mauser 1934, the average P08, or an entire continent's worth of blowback .32 and .380 pistols made between 1900 and WWII; but they will run on Fiocchi, MFS, PPU, S&B, Igman, MaxxTech, and MagTech - all far cheaper ammos. That's maybe a bad example, however, for the overall topic, but my point is that "cheap" ammo doesn't mean "crappy."

Oh, I know. I may have changed lanes a bit, but I did use my blinker!

It got me thinking is all. "What caliber, out of what I can go find, and afford, adequate amounts of do I trust to get it done?" Outside of home defense, maybe diminishing combat effectiveness at 2-400 yards. I am liking 308.

 

[PaleHawkDown]

Oh, I know. I may have changed lanes a bit, but I did use my blinker!

It got me thinking is all. "What caliber, out of what I can go find, and afford, adequate amounts of do I trust to get it done?" Outside of home defense, maybe diminishing combat effectiveness at 2-400 yards. I am liking 308.

That does seem to be a strong contender.

 

[338RUM]

I'll just take a 6mm ARC, only ammo manufacturer is Hornady and all of it shoots very well in my rifle

 

[Rex in OTZ]

My experence with crappy economy (Blammo Ammo)
Economy Rimfire will burn dirty, accuracy will run all over the place, velocity might be different from round to round.
(Late 1980's chinese .22lr)
The odds of duds, hangfires and squibs might be quite high.
One batch of economy rimfire brass was brittle and would crack at the rim when fired, spitting gas back in my face (marlin model 100 bolt action single shot)
Had two squids that required driving the bullet out of the barrel (ruined a Outers sectional cleaning rod)
As for centerfire (.223) I bought some economy reload practice ammo (early 1990's)
Noticed rounds in box to be a mixture of differeing brands of brass.
Velocity was not consistant, accuracy was surprisingly acceptable at 50 yds.
Had some cases hang up in the chamber of my scoped NEF handi rifle and needed a cleaning rod to poke out stuck cases.
An accointance that was class III owner/shooter encountered a squb in his Colt M-16A2 HB as last shots of the outing he stoked using that economy reloaded ammo, luckly it was the last round in the magazine and he caught it as we noticed it sounded wierd and no hit on the steel target, he was shaken up by discovering a bullet lurking where it shouldnt have been.
Buying military surplus ammo like 7.62x54r or 7.62x39.
The cheaper it is the more corrosive it might be.
The only time I ever encountered a stuck gas pistion on a Chinese SKS was cleaning a buddies paratrooper carbine.
It took a long time to get the upper handguard gas tube off.
The piston head was badly pitted and rusted in there and took ages to dissemble.
I was asked to look as a brand new looking Polish Mosin 44 as a prebuy.
The bore looked fuzzy.
So we ran a cleaning rod down the bore.
Talk about a intrrupted thread!
The seller shot corrosive ammo assuming it was not, it sat at a Alaskan cabin for 3 winters never cleaned and it ruined the bore.


In survival.
Use a durable, reliable magazine fed firearm with decent accuracy.
In survival situation having crappy ammo could render your one and only firearm inoperable or even destroy it in case of a squib followd by a good round.
Use a repeater.
In hunting, single shots are a plesant handicap you choose to place on yourself, in hunting for survival that quick followup shot might be the difference between you eating or going back to camp empty handed.

Why is it that people insist on handicaping themselves with crap firearms and ammo in a life or death situation?

If your dependant on only a firearm to survive, you already handicapping yourself.
Invest in some traps, nets and fishing setlines.
The Passive hunting method of trapping works to your advantage in time and calories.

Then again what ever SHTF situation impacting you, might impact wildlife as well, natural resources just might not be as plentiful as one assumes.

 

[shanebrews]

natural resources just might not be as plentiful as one assumes.

This is a really good point. Most of the game will get wiped out in months if we get sent halfway back to the stone age.

 

[Rex in OTZ]

If you live in wild hog country that might count as a unnatural resource.

Any attempts at gardening will be impacted by wildlife like hogs and raccoon and deer.

Survival might end up being a community endevor.

Human labor resources will be relied upon and best pooled for any productive results.
Community defence, Hauling water, harvesting wood, laundry, sanitation.

 

[PaleHawkDown]

 

[Rex in OTZ]

Another type of ammunition to be wary of is improperly stored ammunition or really old ammunition.
Encountered a old stash of CCI Mini-mags that on fireing cracked every case mouth on fireing and on average 4 out of 6 that spit back gas from crack where fireing pin struck case rim
The Marlin 783 handles routed off gas poorly right into the shooters eye.
Early signs was cracked case mouth rings differently when spent cartridge hits the ground.
Almost all the 14 rounds from that box split case, we stopped when we started getting gas out the bolt as firing pin routed gas right out the back in your face (fantastic reason to always wear eye protection).
At that point the penny pinching side of me thought about firing that ammo from a different type firearm like a ruger 10/22 that utilizes a receiver type that wont vent gas in the shooters eye.
Then the safty side of me said toss this before somebody gets injured or this crappy ammo somehow renders your rifle inoprable.
$200 .22 rifle vs the $8 worth of crappy ammo?
86 rounds of that Crappy CCI ammo went in a very deep hole and dirt kicked in over it.
Old ammo can hurt you.

Rimfire ammo that is subject to vibration or a physical shock (like falling on floor) may be less than reliable.
I had a crapload of FTF rounds from a couple 50 round boxes that rode in my snowmobile handlebar bag with my spare sparkplugs.
I pulled appart a couple duds.
One cartridge had two dents (photo below) and one had been fire dinged 3 times.
Here is what came loose inside.

Yea those yellow colored flakes, thats the priming compound that was knocked loose from careless handling in freezing tempratures.
So as you can see I create'd dud's from bad handling.

 

[PaleHawkDown]

Another type of ammunition to be wary of is improperly stored ammunition or really old ammunition.
Encountered a old stash of CCI Mini-mags that on fireing cracked every case mouth on fireing and on average 4 out of 6 that spit back gas from crack where fireing pin struck case rim
The Marlin 783 handles routed off gas poorly right into the shooters eye.
Early signs was cracked case mouth rings differently when spent cartridge hits the ground.
Almost all the 14 rounds from that box split case, we stopped when we started getting gas out the bolt as firing pin routed gas right out the back in your face (fantastic reason to always wear eye protection).
At that point the penny pinching side of me thought about firing that ammo from a different type firearm like a ruger 10/22 that utilizes a receiver type that wont vent gas in the shooters eye.
Then the safty side of me said toss this before somw body gets injured or this ammo somehow damages your rifle.
The $200 .22 rifle vs the $8 worth of crappy ammo.
Crappy CCI ammo went in a very deep hole.
Old ammo can hurt you.

It's weird. Brass can get brittle with age, and several ammo companies note this, however I've shot WW1, WW2 and even antique ammo that was fine, and except for reloads, I don't think I've ever had a case split.

Then there's the fact that that there is plenty of medieval and even Roman brass in perfectly good shape.

I wonder if certain formulations are better than others.

 

[Rex in OTZ]

It's weird. Brass can get brittle with age, and several ammo companies note this, however I've shot WW1, WW2 and even antique ammo that was fine,
I wonder if certain formulations are better than others.

It might be certain alloy batches or as in most aged cartridge case splitting, I believe may be a chemical decomposition of the powder formulation inside which caused by certain conditions involving extreme tempratures and humidity.

 

[AK Hunter]

I would choose the 7.62x39 because no matter how bad the ammo is my AKs always eat everything I load into them. I once had some way under powered Winchester that would barely cycle the action & was hitting the target 3ft low at 100, it ate it without a problem except for the low hits. It will handle over powered ammo too because it's so loose that blown primers just fall through.

 

[Mike Miedzianowski]

I bought a 1000 rounds of TulAmmo and for it being steel case and supposed cheap my Girsan Regard MC has no problem with it so I wouldn't hesitate to say the 9mm in that brand would do good .

 

[Johnny_Revolver]

308.

 

[Rex in OTZ]

Just spitballing this.
A nice balance of caliber and range?
6mm Remington
.243 Winchester
.260 Remington
6.5mm Creedmoor
6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser
7mm08 Remington.