GolfR
Ultimate Member
First of all, I want to be clear, this quick review is of Freedom Ammunition reloads, NOT Freedom Munitions. The latter is a company I have made many purchases from and had great results. The specific company I'm reviewing here is: https://www.freedomammunition.com/
Second...I'm sorry for the long rants but I don't want to see anyone else get ripped off by these guys.
I noticed what looked like a good deal on 9mm 124 gr at this site back in November. It was marked as a sale item marked as mix box ammunition and in the description section was very clearly marked as "New production brass case ammunition with Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) bullet". After a nearly 1 month wait to receive my order a quick inspection revealed they were reloads. Honestly, I kind of expected this but to compound the misstatements on the website was the fact that the rounds were loaded with plated bullets instead of FMJ. Again, not a huge deal until I started to check the quality of the reloads....
I pulled a few bullets and found that the crimp on the plated bullet was extremely heavy. To the point that it was cracking the plating. In addition, I found that the COL of a sampling of 10 rounds varied by as much as 0.05" which sparked some serious concern. My first thought was "should I even trying shooting this stuff"? So I attempted to call the manufacturer. After leaving three messages and two unanswered emails my frustration was of course high. Against my better judgement, I took 200 of the rounds to the range and experienced 2 failures to fire during the first 100 rounds and much to my frustration a squib round on the second 100 rds. On top of this I found significant accuracy issues out of my CZ. Again, I went back to the phone and email with no response.
Finally after leaving a rather irritate voice message and emails that included screen shots of the still active and very incorrect listing, I did get a phone call back from the company. It was explained to me that the product I received was exactly what was described and that "I should be more careful to read the descriptions". The person I talked with had no real knowledge of ammunition and couldn't comment on the quality issues I found. They claimed that the ATF does not allow them to receive returns. I ended the call with the fact that I was going to dispute the credit card charges unless they addressed the issues.
About a week after disputing the charges, I got a phone call from Steven Snyder, the CEO of Freedom Ammunition. After explaining the situation and my desire to return the product for a refund, I was told that "I should be a smart enough person to know that the item listed at 18 cents a round was not going to be new production". My argument of the fact that the bullets were not FMJ fell on deaf ears because he could not describe to me what the difference was between a FMJ and plated/TMJ bullet were. Interesting coming from the "CEO" of an ammunition company!
He demanded that I reinstate the charges and that if I didn't he would "call the ATF and report me for illegally ordering ammunition through the mail". At this I laughed and expressed that my ordering of ammunition was completely legal and that he would be responsible for illegally shipping ammunition if there was a legal issue. To this he responded "we ship ammunition to many places its not legal to keep our customers happy". At this point, I couldn't believe what I was hearing! Did he really just admit to me that they illegally ship ammunition???
So, in the end, I thankfully have my money back. I have close to 800 rds of useless ammo that I will probably just throw away for fear that I would get more squib rounds and cause damage or serious injury. I haven't heard anything about him "reporting me to the ATF" hahaha.
The moral of this long saga...DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM FREEDOM AMMUNITION!!!
Second...I'm sorry for the long rants but I don't want to see anyone else get ripped off by these guys.
I noticed what looked like a good deal on 9mm 124 gr at this site back in November. It was marked as a sale item marked as mix box ammunition and in the description section was very clearly marked as "New production brass case ammunition with Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) bullet". After a nearly 1 month wait to receive my order a quick inspection revealed they were reloads. Honestly, I kind of expected this but to compound the misstatements on the website was the fact that the rounds were loaded with plated bullets instead of FMJ. Again, not a huge deal until I started to check the quality of the reloads....
I pulled a few bullets and found that the crimp on the plated bullet was extremely heavy. To the point that it was cracking the plating. In addition, I found that the COL of a sampling of 10 rounds varied by as much as 0.05" which sparked some serious concern. My first thought was "should I even trying shooting this stuff"? So I attempted to call the manufacturer. After leaving three messages and two unanswered emails my frustration was of course high. Against my better judgement, I took 200 of the rounds to the range and experienced 2 failures to fire during the first 100 rounds and much to my frustration a squib round on the second 100 rds. On top of this I found significant accuracy issues out of my CZ. Again, I went back to the phone and email with no response.
Finally after leaving a rather irritate voice message and emails that included screen shots of the still active and very incorrect listing, I did get a phone call back from the company. It was explained to me that the product I received was exactly what was described and that "I should be more careful to read the descriptions". The person I talked with had no real knowledge of ammunition and couldn't comment on the quality issues I found. They claimed that the ATF does not allow them to receive returns. I ended the call with the fact that I was going to dispute the credit card charges unless they addressed the issues.
About a week after disputing the charges, I got a phone call from Steven Snyder, the CEO of Freedom Ammunition. After explaining the situation and my desire to return the product for a refund, I was told that "I should be a smart enough person to know that the item listed at 18 cents a round was not going to be new production". My argument of the fact that the bullets were not FMJ fell on deaf ears because he could not describe to me what the difference was between a FMJ and plated/TMJ bullet were. Interesting coming from the "CEO" of an ammunition company!
He demanded that I reinstate the charges and that if I didn't he would "call the ATF and report me for illegally ordering ammunition through the mail". At this I laughed and expressed that my ordering of ammunition was completely legal and that he would be responsible for illegally shipping ammunition if there was a legal issue. To this he responded "we ship ammunition to many places its not legal to keep our customers happy". At this point, I couldn't believe what I was hearing! Did he really just admit to me that they illegally ship ammunition???
So, in the end, I thankfully have my money back. I have close to 800 rds of useless ammo that I will probably just throw away for fear that I would get more squib rounds and cause damage or serious injury. I haven't heard anything about him "reporting me to the ATF" hahaha.
The moral of this long saga...DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM FREEDOM AMMUNITION!!!
