Right so those are the grade they call "training" here cost €160 per thou. I don't think it will be long before the price of these carts increases in the UK the pound has slumped quite a bit against the Euro so all the imports will take a hit. Who knows maybe we will see British cartridges on sale here soon they must be more competitive now. For the record I have never seen any UK made carts on sale here in France.
Poor Quality Cartridges
- Thread starter Salopian
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Simonix
Well-known member
I tried some jockers.
ended up with 3 fibre wads stuck in my barrels.
Some friends had the same issue.
Between my group of friends we bought 2000, and had 7 stuck wads and several dud primers.
Wont be buying anymore.. :-(
ended up with 3 fibre wads stuck in my barrels.
Some friends had the same issue.
Between my group of friends we bought 2000, and had 7 stuck wads and several dud primers.
Wont be buying anymore.. :-(
Not really good enough that but to be fair I watched a guy have more problems than that with two boxes of Fiocchi's most expensive competition grade cartridges... so much so that it makes a dozen duff budget grade cartridges out of 2000 look like the pinnacle of reliability. However you are right you should not get that many bad cartridges even from budget brands, I personally have shot more than 10k of Decathlons own brand of budget cartridges and never had a single failure.
SmeGHeaD
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As a newbie I've been following this with interest. It would seem that you can't use the old adage 'you get what you pay for' at the moment - with premium brands failing at a higher rate than budget brands, not that there appears to be a huge difference in price.
Do we think this is a result of complacency, or a genuine issue with something that they don't want to acknowledge, or something else?
I'm assuming that this level of failure couldn't be purely down to bad luck - but maybe a long undiscovered manucturing batch problem?
i think I shall be sticking to cheaper carts for the time being.....
Do we think this is a result of complacency, or a genuine issue with something that they don't want to acknowledge, or something else?
I'm assuming that this level of failure couldn't be purely down to bad luck - but maybe a long undiscovered manucturing batch problem?
i think I shall be sticking to cheaper carts for the time being.....
ips
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Generally speaking there is not much difference between makes and models of cartridges they all go bang (most of the time) apart from antimony content, length of brass and quality of powder. What sets expensive stuff aside is that apart from using high antimony, deep brass and good powder the quality control is meant to be better. Expensive stuff such as £240 per K has a cartridge tested every few thousand (apparently) were as cheaper stuff gets one tested every ten thousand or so. This is "supposed" to ensure consistency through the slab and through the batch BUT it would appear that this is sometimes not that reliable.
Ian while I agree that the componentry of the more expensive cartridge can, and is, with out doubt be a major contributory factor in the pricing of a cartridge I don't think the bit in bold can have any major influence in the cost or even the reliability of cartridges. The will all be made using the same production facilities and quality control procedures to do otherwise would make no sense whatsoever. Apart from anything else testing a particular cartridge tells you absolutely nothing whatsoever about any other cartridge that was made on that production run... think about it seriously thousands are being made from exactly the same materials if you get one bad one does it mean they are all bad and the run is scrapped? No, like all things consumable it comes down to the cost of the initial research, the machinery required and materials used... and of course the projected sales of the item in question. When the manufacturer has researched and designed a product and done a test production run then checked the quality of that run to confirm the agreed specification they have to trust that their production machinery, which they have invested a huge sum of money in for that very reason, has the fidelity to reproduce ad nauseam. Of course there will be testing of the finished product but can you honestly tell me what testing 50 as opposed to 100 would prove in terms of a production run of thousands?
If we take for example a budget cartridge costing €160 per thousand for example Fiocchi TT1 @ £160 and an expensive cartridge say Fiocchi golden trap @ £235 the difference in cost has very little to do with the quality control of the manufactured product. It has more to do with the product research, the components that made up that product and economies of scale. The quality control of what actually drops off the end of the production line will , in my opinion, be little different.
Of course I could be very wrong and Fiocchi may test their top price cartridge much more vigorously and on finding that 50 examples out of a production run of 25k... they scrap the entire run... I really doubt that... and what I am hearing makes me think otherwise. By the way I am not rounding on Fiocchi the same applies to any big producer... you do not build a reputation on, effectively, saying these are budget cartridges they are priced as such and we know the quality control is sh*te... but we don't care!
In fact I would say the exact opposite is likely to be the company policy they will want to project an image that even though the cartridge is at a budget price it is still subject to the high quality control standards of the rest of their esteemed brand
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ips
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well that is how I understand it, as for if a bad production run gets binned......well I would hope so because that is the whole point of vigorous quality control and the reason we pay more for a particular cartridge given that as i said earlier apart from a couple of pretty meaningless things like antimony fundamentally there is not THAT much difference between olympics and VIP
There is no doubt in my mind that the more you pay the more consistency you get. I have no idea how many shots I have fired in thirty years or how many makes and models I have tried BUT ITS A CHUFFING LOT and the above Statement is from my experience. I have chronographed quite a few and the thing that struck us as the difference between"club" loads and "high end comp loads" was the variation in fps of the cheap ones and the relatively consistent fps of the expensive ones. The bloke pulling the trigger during the majority of these tests (a highly experienced shooter) could sometimes even tell by the recoil.
There is no doubt in my mind that the more you pay the more consistency you get. I have no idea how many shots I have fired in thirty years or how many makes and models I have tried BUT ITS A CHUFFING LOT and the above Statement is from my experience. I have chronographed quite a few and the thing that struck us as the difference between"club" loads and "high end comp loads" was the variation in fps of the cheap ones and the relatively consistent fps of the expensive ones. The bloke pulling the trigger during the majority of these tests (a highly experienced shooter) could sometimes even tell by the recoil.
In my view cheaper stuff tends to be harder to get regular supplies of, more often than not only available in 7.5`s and the recoil tends to be a bit more craggy. On the subject of break quality I believe the mid to high price shells having more antimony means better/harder breaks on rangy/edgy clays, budget brands can sometimes give crumbly rather than pulverizing breaks.
I am lucky to be shooting with some very good nay world class trap shooters down here and I will give you a quote from last Sunday. I won't give a name it would or could lead to upsetting his sponsers I ask him why he uses the cartridge he does and what makes them so special? His reply... with a smile... they are free I would never pay the asking price for these !
I ask him why he uses the cartridge he does and what makes them so special? His reply... with a smile... they are free I would never pay the asking price for these !
Michael
Well-known member
Bought 250 Fiochi FBlacks this Saturday, wife and I used them this morning absolutely no problems encountered. I guess like everything else today, you can come across a duffer no matter how much you spend.
P1Fanatic
Well-known member
A single slab is hardly a basis to form an opinion on reliability. But agreed I dont believe higher price = better reliability. Percentage wise I have had more no fires with Black Golds but thats only as I bought 1000 and 1 failure.
salop sniper
Well-known member
I dont shoot masses of cartridges but the last bad cartridge I remember was nearly 15 years ago and I bought a 1000 of fibre wad eley first ........
I was know around the shoot for confetti that used to leave my barrels like a party popper with debris floating down after 9/10 shots, it provided much fun for others and since I haven't bought an Eley cartridge since! Hull and Gamebore is where I spend my money now, Evo`s for clays and HPE for game.
ATB
Matt
I was know around the shoot for confetti that used to leave my barrels like a party popper with debris floating down after 9/10 shots, it provided much fun for others and since I haven't bought an Eley cartridge since! Hull and Gamebore is where I spend my money now, Evo`s for clays and HPE for game.
ATB
Matt
It may not be too far off when you will not be able to buy any cartridges made in mainland Europe. One would logically think that any cartridges coming from Europe are about to become anything up to 20% more expensive... post Brexit you may not be able to get them at all !
Santa2512
Well-known member
Michael
Well-known member
Santa, they were plastic.
Michael
Well-known member
Wasn't carrying out a controlled quality survey. Bought cos they had em in the shop, used em, they were fine. Simples.
I have said god knows how many times on this forum you CANNOT evaluate anything at all when the person using it knows they are using it... end of. The only way you can test any product no matter what is in a double blind test. I will take any money anybody wants to lay that in a double blind test they will fail to be able to differentiate two well made cartridges even if the price difference runs to nearly twice ! A simple challenge would be say a humble Clever T1 vs a Clever T3. I am not trying to put anybody down but to understand this concept you have to know about the standard method of testing the efficacy of any product where a manufacturer is trying to prove their product is better than another product. This is the reason I believe that no manufacturer will ever be able to make a claim... for some reason they have not done the tests... could this be because shooters blow as hot and cold as their cartridges do? The reason no tests are done is quite simply the cost would be immense and by the time the test had been done and the results analysed the cartridges tested would be old hat. I actually don't think any serious shooter would want to be a subject in a test of that sort... they prefer to believe that because a very good shooter is paid to use a certain type and make of expensive cartridge... it without question follows that they are the best... laughable to be honest.
Wonko the Sane
Well-known member
So here's where it gets tricky. You could extend that same argument to any bit of kit, including guns and we all KNOW that you don't want to go there!!!
oke:
ips
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been here before john. Double blind, you are probably right it would be difficult however many shooters, me included, can tell when you fire a duff one OR if you have a bad batch of your usual brand. There is no doubt about that but its fare to say that you do need quite a few years experience under your belt (like you have) to be able to tell. BUT just because a shooter is not experienced enough to tell does not mean that he will not benefit from a decent quality and more importantly consistent cartridge.
