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The silencer shoot this past weekend was mainly BYOA — Bring Your own Ammo. Silencer manufacturers were perfectly happy to let you try their stuff and use their guns, but they wanted you to have your own supply of rounds to put downrange. For those who didn’t bring some from home, HPR Ammunition was on hand to dole out the lead in return for some greenbacks. And since I hadn’t heard of them before I figured I would lay some knowledge down on you readers as well.

HPR, or High Precision Range ammunition, is a relatively new ammunition manufacturer based out of Arizona whose shtick is to make 100% American made ammunition. everything from the copper jacket down to the priming compound is made right here in the USA.

But what really sets them apart from the other manufacturers is somethign I almost couldn’t believe when I heard their rep say it at the event:

“If you find a fingerprint or two on the ammunition when you open the box that’s because every round is inspected by hand.”

The only other manufacturer I know that has 100% visual inspection of ammunition is Wilson Combat, and that’s because those crazy bastards load each round by hand.

Everything about this ammunition screams “premium quality,” from the high gloss polish on the cases down to the well designed cardboard packaging.

Needless to say I’ve asked for some ammunition to test out to see how they rate among the rest of the ammo manufacturers, but for first impressions it looks like some damn fine ammo.

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30 COMMENTS

    • I question the Made In America claim. They say they se American components, and that each round is inspected by US Citizens. That seems like weasel wording for Assembled In China or Mexico. I have the feeling that if they were honest, all they’d have to say in 10% Made In The USA.

      • Here are the requirements to work for HPR: Doesn’t sound like Chinese workers in a Chinese building in China.

        •Smoking is not permitted. We are a tobacco-free workplace.
        •Minimum of a high school diploma.
        •Must be a US citizen.
        •Must pass drug test and FBI background check.

        Or, you could call them and, ask them if they make all their products in the USA, rather than elude to slandering their name on a blog-post. Tel: 928.468.0223

        • It’s once-fired military which isn’t bad if the quality lives up to their claim especially if you reload and the brass is Lake City.

          The factory is about an hour and a half north of me but I see Cabela’s and Shooters World both carry it. I might pick up a box or two to use as a benchmark against the handloads I’ve cooked up for my newly-built AR. I love supporting AZ companies.

  1. If they’re anything like Surefire or Crimson Trace, and being from Az, I wonder if their workforce is “American”?

    • Good question but I’d venture to say they are. Somehow I don’t think they cruised the lot at Home Depot for experienced ammo technicians. Especially with the employer sanctions here in AZ.

      • I’m just going by two different episodes on either American Rifleman or Guns and Ammo TV which highlighted both Crimson Trace and Surefire on their shows. And all of the production people looked of a foreign nature, and most tried their best not to look at the camera. And with the high cost of both of their products, you would think they could afford legal Americans to do the production work.

        • I worked at SureFire and I can tell you that their workforce is comprised of at least 99% U.S. citizens (I leave 1% because I have not personally inspected each file). A good portion of the factory work force are U.S. citizens of Vietnamese descent because…the SureFire factory is located in an area of California with a large Vietnamese-American population.

          My personal observation is that the first generation immigrants will out-patriot most citizens: They love being Americans, they love this country, and they work like they’ve got something at stake.

          If you are inferring that naturalized citizens are somehow less worthy than those whose parents immigrated here decades ago…well, you might reconsider that perspective.

        • So your only american if your white and because im brown im not american racist bastard my dad and uncle fought in vietnam

  2. $20 for a box of .223? You can get milspec, U.S made 5.56 M855 of M193 ammo for half that price.

    One has to wonder what their market is. Is it just me, or don’t most people shoot the cheapest ammo possible for general range use?

    Even for matches, most people either use handloads or ammo from one of a dozen other premium manufacturers.

  3. @ ~$1 a round I’ll pass. You can get 200 rounds of OEM/Factory Remington .223 for $84 + tax ($96 out here I think.. I dont recall but it was less than $100. Thats half the cost, with (im willing to bet) the same performance. Now if your reloading your own brass, you could get the cost well below $0.30 per round, with identical, if not superior components. Varget/RL15 runs nice and clean, and you can find brass, or catch your own. Projectiles you can shop around for. Depends on what your shooting. I do appreciate what HPR is doing, they just need to come down in price a little bit.

  4. I, for one, would gladly pay $18.00 for a box of 50 standard 9mm TMJ rounds.

    Oh wait. No, I wouldn’t.

  5. I think you saw the price and figured it was a box of 20 instead of 50! I’ve seen their 223 55 grain for WAY less than a buck a round. More like 38 cents or so. LuckyGunner had it for like 18-19 bucks a box of 50 rounds before they sold out.

    Also, cheaperthandirt has some of their stuff for very attractive prices.

    Just went looking further and Cabelas has .223 match grade stuff like VMAX and 75 grain Boat Tails for about 60 cents a round.

    From the little experience I’ve had with it thus far I feel that it’s a newer and more affordable Black Hills. Very solid.

  6. “If you find a fingerprint or two on the ammunition when you open the box that’s because every round is inspected by hand.”

    You could get your inspectors a box of latex gloves. Just sayin’.

  7. With the price of ammo at its current astronomical level, why aren’t more folks reloading? I read reviews like this, and I really wonder why you would want to spend that kind of money on ammo you can do yourself, for a serious discount. When you roll your own, you can tailor your loads to achieve maximum accuracy in a specific rifle or handgun, rather than settling for whatever factory load seems to work the best.

    Of course, this requires a lot of careful work and a lot of range time to develop the loads. I suppose that is a deal killer for those into instant gratification. So when the SHTF and you start going through your factory stuff, save your brass and make sure you are friends with the OFWG in your neighborhood. And don’t think it’s different from the hunting and shooting skills discussed above (“OK, you have guns and food…”). You can’t “pick up” reloading for accuracy in a 3-minute You-tube video.

      • And firing reloads would violate my Sig Sauer warranty.

        Of course, I have other guns. I think my Remington 721 30-06 is probably out of warranty by now. =)

  8. I picked up some .380 jhp ammo the other day from Buds Guns. I like their packaging, the rounds looked good, and the price was right. However half of them would not load into the magazine as the overall length was too long. Some others would push the bullet into the casing after being chambered once. Not by a couple of thousands of an inch, but by 1/3 or more of the projectile length. Those that did fire worked well, and accuracy was ok. However my arms were covered in unburned powder. But that may be more a function of the short barrels in the .380’s than the quality of the ammo. Overall, I wouldn’t buy again. Imagine that kind of bullet setback in a higher pressure round like a .40 S&W, it would be dangerous. And since you couldn’t tell it happened until you fired it, the shooter would be none the wiser. Seriously I get better crimps on my Dillon. I can understand commercial presses need adjustments. But the first few rounds on the run should not have made it out of the factory.

  9. I was poking around at a local outdoor-store and picked up a 50-round box of HPR HyperClean in .357mag, w/ 158g JHP [$35], opened it up to inspect the cartridges and was pleasantly surprised to find HPR using Starline Brass. It also struck me that the ammo looked like little jewels, very highly polished cases & JHPs, no dents, no scratches, or blemishes of any type and, an ammo box that I probably won’t throw away.

    At this point, an older employee at the store told me not to open the boxes of ammo. I smiled and said, “I have to, I don’t want to buy ammo I can’t use” – – 3 times in the last couple years, I purchased ammo without first looking inside the box and after arriving home, opened the boxes only to find I was now the owner ammo, of which I have no pistol or rifle, [ammo in the box didn’t match the label on the box] or in the case of Winchester’s 7.62×25, a box of heavily damaged primers & heads. I can’t return it to the store, not even 3 minutes later, returning from the parking-lot, and returning ammo to the mfg is a 4 month long proposition [took Winchester 7 months to make good on that 1 box of ammo, so I look in the boxes]. But I digress…

    The HPR HyperClean shot well – 3″ groups at 50 feet [good for me & my Taurus anyway], with an occasional flier, shooter error most likely. They were very-clean burning and now I have 50 Starline brass in .357 – I’m guessing here but I think these HP bullets are Hornady.

    All the rounds measured 1.583 +/- .002
    All the rounds weighed 249.5gr +/- 0.7gr Pretty darn accurate considering that the brass, bullets & powder-charge will all have a slight weight-swing. Correct my math but it looks like a 3% swing in weight on either side of the 249.5gr average.

    I will buy again and try some of their other calibers too, but first I WILL open the boxes to look inside.

  10. Best brand of .357 mag ammo out there currently. I shoot the 158 grain JHP XTP(jacketed hollow point extreme terminal performance) out of a titanium taurus 4″, a ruger gp100 6″ and a S&W 686 6″. All I have is top quality .357 mag ammo and this stuff is now my choice of brand from now on. Clean, accurate and pure virgin brass.

  11. Nice ammo, when I compared 50 HPR 223 to 2.5 boxes American Eagle AR223 it was only a couple cents more for the HPR. I shoot a Stag model 8+ with a Nikon M-223 3-12x42mm. At 100 yards I can see the holes in the target. I am not that great of a shot so the equipment helps. I put 30 rounds in a 1.5 hole at 100 yards. I sighted the scope in at 75 yards and 3 shots touched in a clover pattern. I started hand loading 6 months ago and still can’t match that. I wont shoot any more until I can find a longer range and I want to try the 75gr open tip match.
    The model 8 is a piston operated rifle so the bolt is always clean but it did not take much to clean the barrel after 100 rounds.
    The brass I thought was new but it was once fired Lake City, the bullet was 60gr V-Max. Who knows what the powder was but it was real clean Hyper Clean

  12. I’ll tell you what and this may be biased because I personally know and shoot with some of the guys from HPR but they don’t use illegals, they do hand inspect and they are damn proud Americans who make a damn good product.

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