Remington Golden Sabre Ammo

[caddishatch]

I was just curious what people thought about the Golden Sabre ammo from Remington in the 9mm and 40 cal? I was going to use it in my 19, 23 and 27.

[KhanRad]

It's not the latest and greatest bullet technology, but certainly not the worst. It makes Dr. Robert's "list" in 9mm and .40S&W:
https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=19887

When it comes to the .380acp, I think that Remington's 102gr load is one of the best as it has a more rounded nose allowing it to cycle more reliably than almost all other JHPs on the market. Since the bullet seats a little bit deeper than other loads, it also has a larger crimping area making it more resistant to setback. Other than the penetration problems that all .380acp JHPs suffer from, I'd say it is probably the best self defense load you can use outside of FMJ as it has greater mass, sectional density, feeding relibility, and it has a little more recoil for better cycling.

[Dos Cylindros]

This was my departments issue ammunition for the past couple of years. We have recently switched to Winchester Ranger, but I have no complaints about the Golden Saber. We were running the 180 grain for .40 and I beleive it was the 124 grain +P for the few Department issue MP5's that are still in service. It all performed (as in functioned) great, and worked on the bad guy in the one shooting I know it was used in. In that case he was hit with the +P 9mm out of an MP5.

Bullet technology changes all the time. Don't really concern yourself too much with the minute changes, golden saber has been proven for many years. I really don't think you can go wrong by running it.

[Xenogy]

I have seen too much core/jacket separation in many test with the 180gr GS.

[msstate56]

I recently saw some 9mm golden saber bonded at my local cop shop. So that looks like the new version will be bonded and that's a good thing. Maybe Doc knows more about it?

[Surf]

We shit canned a few pallets of it in 40S&W. It was intended to be our new duty ammunition. It got forced on us due to low bid BS. We started running it in one of our 10 week schools to try it out. We were getting an alarming rate of hard primer strikes. In one day of shooting we collected 18 rounds with full primer strikes and no ignition out of 5000 rounds fired. We were actually incorporating dummy rounds into a good portion of the day and the only reason I noticed is that I saw gold rounds ejecting. We only collected 18 but I am not sure how many more there were. Now this may not sound like a lot to some, but when lives are on the line, this is waaay too many.

I then began shooting a lot of it myself in my own little informal accuracy testing from things that I had heard about it having poor accuracy. I often shoot at standard pepper poppers from 25 out to 100 yards. I started noting from time to time I would get a crazy flier that would be several yards off target from 75-100 yards and at 25 yards I might have misses by a yard or two.

I started dumping out boxes of ammo into buckets and inspecting rounds. I noted that on some of the rounds the gold casing looked thin on certain parts. Upon looking at more and more rounds I actually found that on some ammo the gold jacket was not even all the way around the bullet itself and of course it was thinner on one side. You could fire this ammo and it would be way off target. So with these 2 issues the ammo was shit canned.

This is one quarterly allotment of this ammo that we draw from the main supply and we must have fired over 20K rounds of it before this picture. There was more than 3X this much still in the main supply and this is duty ammo and not our training ammo. There are various lots of course.

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd60/SSDSurf/Misc/ammo012.jpg

A few more cases on the bottom shelf.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd60/SSDSurf/Misc/ammo031.jpg

[LHS]

A fellow was shooting some of the 230gr .45 Remington GS at a class about 9 months ago. The fireball was prodigious compared to other common defensive loadings. It reminded me of the old 200-gr Cor-Bon +p 'flying ashtrays'.

[vigilant2]

I used to use it as my carry load, its supposed to be a pretty good
defensive round. But I'd since read alot of articles complaining about
its bright muzzle flash across the board compared to other defensive
rounds, not something you want in a defensive round.
I've been using Winchester Ranger as my carry ammo since. Federal
HST is also another good alternative.

[GLOCKMASTER]

Our experience with Golden Saber mirrors Surf's. We have actually received cases upon cases with primers and projectiles upside down. I have actually stood behind the firing line and heard huge difference in the loads. It's obvious their quality control is none existent.

[BKennedy]

Golden Sabers are the only ammo that would cause malfunctions in a Colt Gunsite 1911 I used to own. I witnessed many of the same malfunctions mentioned above and had a few firsts of my own. With all of the quality self defense ammo available these days there's really no need to risk it with this stuff.