MONARCH AMMO...IS IT ANY GOOD

[Guest mudduck]

i am looking at buying some monarch ammo,i am told this is a "house brand" at acadamy sports,i am looking at it because it is so cheap...i want anyone imput on the quality of it,and if there has been any problems with it,i am looking at the .223 just for target shooting.it says it is steel cased 55 gr fmj

Edited January 29, 2011 by mudduck

[shaftbass]

Monarch is the only ammo thus far that my Bushmaster M4 .223 will not cycle reliably FWIW.

[Dolomite_supafly]

I have been told by several people that Monarch is some of the more accurate "budget" ammo. I have never used any personally though.

Dolomtie

[Garufa]

If only we could buy Monarch in Knoxville...

[Guest NashvegasMatt]

its on the lower end of quality.

[shaftbass]

If only we could buy Monarch in Knoxville...

Man you're what, a little over an hour from Wideners? Go get some Wolf!

[Guest mudduck]

i noticed they have the brass cased and the steel cased,is one better than the other

[Guest Plainsman]

I"ve noticed that the steel cased monarch goes on sale sometimes up at Academy for $4.99/box, which is a pretty good deal on something store bought and you don't have to get 1000 rounds. Allows you to buy a few boxes and see how it runs. The brass cased ammo goes for a bit more and IMHO you can get much better ammo for what they're asking if your thinking of going that route. I've run some of the steel cased Monarch through my Bushmaster with no hickups whatsoever. Its similar to the Wolf or any other steel cased russian ammo, and runs a little dirty. I wouldn't think you'd have anything to worry about if your cleaning your rifle after the outing. Its accurate enough to play with as I was basically shooting for hits on target and had no problem with that.

[extremescene]

I believe it is made at the same factory as Brown Bear and seems to look and perform the same. I prefer it to wolf/tula by a long shot.

[Oh Shoot]

its on the lower end of quality.

Bout same as Tula from Wally''s.

Mini14 eats it up fine.

- OS

[JPS]

I've used a lot of it in handguns without problems.

[Smith]

Tula, Monarch, Brown Bear, Silver Bear, Wolf, ect. all come out of one of the 4 Russian ammo factories. Wolf is the civilian ammo clearing house/exporting distributor of Russian ammo. It is essentially all the same with some minor differences. The only caveat to that is the Blue(?) box Monarch. It is brass cassed and made in Serbia.

As to quality, i've never had any problems out of any of the AR's I have shot it through and especially none of the AK's. That being said I have heard of people who's AR's will not cycle it. The cause seems to be the fact that the steel case doesn't expand as well as brass and doesn't seal the chamber well enough. This allows some carbon to leak through and then the next case gets backed into the residue on subsequent shots and will not extract reliably. Again this isn't everybody but some have this problem.

Edited January 29, 2011 by Smith

[mcurrier]

I"ve noticed that the steel cased monarch goes on sale sometimes up at Academy for $4.99/box, which is a pretty good deal on something store bought and you don't have to get 1000 rounds.

I've picked it up at Academy for $3.99 a box (steel) on three separate occasions in the past year. It's $5.99 there right now.

[JAB]

The only Monarch I have shot is the steel cased 9X18 Makarov. In both my and my mom's CZ-82 it works great and is as accurate as any other ammo I have tried in them. At roughly 1/2 the price of what a box of Wolf goes for in my area, it is well worth the drive from Loudon to Chattanooga to hit the Academy pick up a few boxes (especially since my wife and I like to go that direction sometimes, anyway.)

[Guest Drewsett]

My CZ82 eats the Monarch with no complaints whatsoever. I have also used their .38 sp and .357 both with good results

[Zeus]

I've been shooting 9mm monarch ammo for some time now. I stocked up over the last few years buying a few boxes here and there. As I shoot it more and more I like it less and less. I've run into some underpowered loads that failed to even cycle the action on my Glocks (17 & 26). Accuracy is fine but I'm paranoid of a shooting a squib that gets stuck in the barrel. Really the only reason I bought it was for the brass. Now that I'm down to my last box I won't be buying more. Got enough brass to load up a good amount of 9mm.

I ran into a guy at the range the other day while I was having problems with it.....He told me he had the same problems with the monarch 223.

Take it for what it's worth......internet scuttlebutt. But for a dollar or so more you can get more consistent ammo.

[Good_Steward]

I have a Cetme that I haven't purchased an ejection port buffer for. I normally reload everything, but this rifle damages the brass when ejecting it, so I decided to buy some steel cased cheap stuff (Monarch) to run through this while waiting on the buffer.

This stuff was like shooting a black powder gun! Tons of acrid smoke that will burn your eyes out everytime you set it off. I made the mistake of buying 200 rounds of this stuff, and I hope no one repeats it. Nasty, nasty ammo. Way worse than any other ammo I've shot.

Edited February 9, 2011 by Good_Steward