Dating Remington ammunition?

[Brithunter]

OK how does one tell how old a box of Remington ammunition is?

I ask as I ordered a box of Federal .280 Remington 140 Gr and after waiting just over 2 months the importers sent to the gunshop a rather tatty box of Remington Premier Boat Tail 140 Gr. PTD SP BOAT TAIL Cat # PRB280RA

   Now I cannot find this ammunition listed on Remingtons web site nor in a 2008 catalogue that I have here. So I have a nasty suspicion that the importer has found this old box laying around and sent it to fill an order. Not only is it not what I ordered but they somehow found a new price for this and charged it  how about $62.22 USD for a box of 20 rounds. that's $3.21 a pop. Now on one fo the end flaps is a clock face with #3 missing and 98 inside the clock  does this mean this "new" box was made in March 1998?

I have e-mailed Remington and got an automated replay but that's it and that was Six days ago now. I gave them the batch number form the end flap which is:-

G  04  0B0505

So does anyone here know how to date this box of ammo? It seems .280 Rem is rare here with the Importers claiming this was the ONLY box that had of it  and to top that the gunshop says in 25 years of business he cannot remember being asked for .280 Rem before  .

[Brithunter]

Well after my second more strongly worded E-Mail to Remington this morning I received a reply and it said:-

the production date on your ammunition is 3/04/98

 The importers have so far failed to answer my question as to how come 12 year old ammunition was shipped as new. So my assumption about the clock face on the end flap appears to be correct.

Oh the Importers are now going to replace this box with a new one so it also appears someone is telling me porkies as to the stock.

[Siskiyou]

Glad you are holding them to the fire.  Normally ammunition in a tore up box is discounted here.  Every once and while I will buy the discounted boxs and shoot the ammo for brass.  Normally they are discounted about %50.

[Brithunter]

Discounted  wash your mouth out with soap!

Here they priced it as the latest Premier ammo. How does $320 per 100 rounds sound?

After I drop Mother off at the Hospital to visit Dad I will drive to the gunshop where it will be picked up by courier and exchanged for a "new" box of Remington ammo. The Guy mentioned Ballistic Tips so I need to check on the price and make sure I am not be ripped again.

Now taking into the fuel for trveling it now means that every single bang from this box is costing £5.50 ($8.75 usd) PER POP and that's not allowing for running the vechicle on servicing etc just fuel.. It's around a 70 mile round trip each time to the gunshop and I will have to have made three trips due to this.

Here them seems to whack the prices up several hundred percent 

I shall be writing to the importers asking for an explaination of how this could happen and how come the ammunition is such an outragous price. Have already told Remington I cannot afford to buy their ammo here due to the prices the importers are charging.

[84Jim]

Brithunter,

$62 for a box of .280.  Ouch!!!  I just got back from our annual bear hunting trip.  As a comparison from across the pond, 2 guys had 7mm STW's.  They claim that factory ammo costs them from $60 to $90 per box, depending on what they get.  I thought that was crazy.

Hope that your Dad is doing well.

Jim

[Brithunter]

Crazy is the word and it gets worse  I returned the box today and told Colin who owns the shop what this chap Scot from Edgar Bros had told me on the phone so after a bit of complaining he phoned Edgars and guess what no one there seems to know anything about it so we ended up with the boss man on the phone Derek Edgar who told me they don't just change ammunition because it's old. After I gently pointed out that I only brought this box oo November 17th and it was only delivered from them to the gunshop the day before he changed his tune slightly. On checking it seems they have had it sitting on the shelf since 2000.

He told me that Remington don't decide whether it's changed or not and he wants copies on my e-mails to and from Remington. Well I have printed them out and he is not going to like them as I point out to Remington that the pricing here in the UK is a rip off and Edgar Bros are taking the michael with their mark ups.

He is sending out a replacement box of Remington ammo, it's 165 Grn Core Lockt so about the cheapest of the line to replace a box of Premier Boat Tail. I will be making sure I get refunded the difference and I will be pushing for recompense for my out of pocket expenses as that's two trips to the gunshop now and it wil be a third to collect the replacement box which brings it up to about 200 miles traveled for one box of 20 rounds and with fuel at $1.89 USD per litre that's a bunch of money. The old WJ Cherokee is not what one could call fuel efficient 

[pastorp]

Brit, my advise is to move. I've done that several times. You need a more shooter friendly place to live. 

Regards,

[Brithunter]

Not feasible I'm afraid to say. Dad is in hospital, Mother has a damaged hip and broken collar bone I am here to care for them.

Also I would miss things like year long deer hunting, no season on Rabbits and Pigeon so it's not all bad.

[pastorp]

It sure seams like you voice a lot of complaints about how difficult getting shooting supplies and guns are for you.  I guess now your saying the good points outweigh the bad?  maybe you have more to be thankful for than you post. How about posting some positive things we all have enough problems of our own.

Just a though,

[Brithunter]

  Positive things well let's see Weatherby's and Remingtons are not that popular here  so we don't see them and to me that's a very positive point. We aslo don't have to pay for the Hospital bills and medicines and right now that's a huge positive. we don't have the money to deal with that if we had to pay for them.

Although it's cold, below freezing, we have virtually no snow unlike certain areas of the UK. The hopsital is just over 12 miles south of us so a lot of snow would make things awkward.

Now history, if you like it that is, well we are surronded by it. The hospital is The Pilgrim at Boston, the original one  , and in Boston is The Stump which is the nick name for Bostons church. The steeple can be seen for miles due to the flat land as Boston is on the fens and is still a working port. St Botolphs Church to give it it's proper name is the size of a cathedral and is 700 years old:-

http://www.parish-of-boston.org.uk/about.htm

http://www.parish-of-boston.org.uk/

And about the town itself:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston,_Lincolnshire

Now we also have six huntable species of deer these being  Muntjac, Chinese Water deer, Roe, Fallow, Sika and Red. At least one of which is in season at any one point in the year so yes we have deer hunting all year around.. Roe Does are in seaons right now as are Muntjac Fallow Bucks, Sika Stags, Red Stag and Chinese water deer. Where I live there are Roe, Muntjac and CWD around. No limits on how many you can take and no tags or licence is required.