Chris: I can well understand the economics of shooting inexpensive or surplus ammo in a 9mm - it's a great way to have fun, hone your skills and save money. But, with ammo, you get what you pay for and inexpensive surplus or mil-surp ammo may not measure up to the quality I think you would hope/want to find with a 9mm. Good quality guns stoked with good quality ammunition make for quality shooting fun. The fun part comes from knowing that the gun/ammo combination can hit the mark when you do your part. It gets incredibly frustrating when you are doing all the right things, when the handgun you are using is more than capable of the accuracy you demand, but the ammo you are using schmidts the bed. That used to happen years ago with the 9mms and as a result, many 9mms or the 9mm in general, got a bad rap for accuracy.
Shooting Browning Hi-Powers is a good example, as are the Beretta 92s and the like. If you take two identical pieces, stoke one with new, quality ammo and the other with run of the mill mil-surp, you will see the difference and understand the different accuracy capabilities of the various brands of ammo.
The Hi-Powers could get dressed with a Bar-Sto barrel, which always closed those groups right up, unless we were using crap ammo. Had two right next to each other, one with a stock barrel, one with the Bar-sto barrel. With new ammo the Bar-Sto barrl reduced groups to just over an inch at 25 yds. The factory barrel grouped to 2.5 inches. With mil-surp, the Bar-Sto went to 2.5 inches and the factory barrel went out to about 5. It was an interesting comparison.
In this regard, if you order ammo in bulk, you may get as good a deal by ordering larger quanties of newly manufactured amo in bulk than you might with older, poorer quality mil-surp.
ps: try an avoid French ammo, it lacks decisiveness. Mikey.
