Oxford Gun Club purchased several flats of Rio's to give as prizes during our Club Championship and as our club members use them they are finding boxes with shells missing. Today for the Pen-Mar shoot a member opened a new box (still taped) and there were 4 shells missing. We opened the rest of the boxes he had and found another one with 1 shell missing. Has anyone else had this issue? I have been shooting Rio Hcp shells for a couple of years and never had this problem. (shells in question were 1 1/8 8's)

Look for boxes with the top bulged out. They might have 26-27 shells in them. The short shell boxes seem to be more common with discount shells.

Pat Ireland

I have shot alot of different brands of shells and have had missing shells in every one of them but never had more than 25 in a box. g3

I have been selling Rio's at our club for about 4 years and never had this problem until they started assembling them in Tennesse. I have had short boxes, some with no primers, and several with sorry crimps and all the shot leaked out. Sounds like their quality control is pretty poor. Don

I emailed them at www.rioammo.com to see what they have to say. Has anyone else contacted them? What was their response. I to have had a box with a shell shy every bluemoon or so but never one with extras.

I had the same problem with 10 flats or so I bought of Keman's a few years ago. I E-mailed there website site and complained about it being the first time I bought shells from them and if they did not do something I would never buy shells from them again. They were very good about wanting to know the lot number of shells (which I gave them) and they sent me two Keman hats right to my house. They handled the whole thing with a couple of E-mails back and forth and I was very Happy with the way they handled this small problem. Never got that response with anyone else. Oh Yeh, and I still buy there shells and never had another problem. Good Luck with Rio's website and the sister company of Keman. Break-em all. Jeff

Some of our sporting clays shooters use Keman and seem to be very happy with the way they perform. I have used Rio Hcp loads for 2 years with no problems. I am very suprised to see a box of Rio's with 4 shells missing.

Just had this very situation occur with Winchester. I had a short box and few shells "hot-glued" to the inside of the flat outside of the boxes...

I contacted Winchester Olin... they sent a UPS call label - I packaged up the partial box, damaged (flattened) shells and the original outer box for examination. After a couple of months involving only a couple of polite pestering calls, they responded with an offer to compensate me for my inconvenience.

I may not like the new AA, but Winchester is still a standup up operation when it comes to their ammunition - in this case - Xpert Steel...

regards,

jay

Had a guy today at our club shooting our annual championship match. He was using some Rios that he was given..new stuff. Some sounded so weak we asked him to check for a wad in the barrel. It was disconcerting to him and to those on the squad with him. Cured me from buying any.

We have had a problem with Rio's in cold weather. I have been told to never leave them in the car during cold months.

I have never experienced any boxes with missing shells. Seem to work pretty good for me.

Has anyone reloaded the Rio empties?

Does anyone know if reloading data for Rio shells is listed by a manufacturer of either the shells, wads, powder, etc.? Looking for reliable receipes, not something someone has made up.

Thanks

These are cheddite type hulls. Use Cheddite Data

TB

I know a few people who have reloaded Rio hulls using Federal GM data. The problem is that even the Federal primer data will be a bit lower in pressure compared to what the Rio primer (which you must use) will produce. How lower? who knows, but Alliant acknowledges that the Rio primers will produce higher pressures and velocities than the Federals in Federal data.

The other problem they encounter is that the Federal wads don't fit the Rio hulls very well, diameter-wise. These same people who reload them are plagued with weak and off-sounding shells; they use mostly Red Dot powder. Claybuster is supposed to have adjusted the cups on their Federal 12S0 clones to compensate but you would have to call Claybuster to verify that.

Carol Lister

Never had a missing shell per box. Had several cases with only nine boxes though.

I had this happen with one of the other popular brands of shells. I sent the company a letter and they were very nice about replacing the missing shells and then some. John

I'm starting to feel lucky our cases had all the boxes even if some were short. Also, all primers were present and crimps looked good. I'm still waiting for a response from Rio Ammo.

thanks guys for the reloading info.

Cheddite primers do seem to fit nicely, and Down Range does make a DR-XXL, Orange wad for 1 or 1-1/8 ounce loads in straight walled hulls.

I've had RIO's with 24 in a box quite a few times. I e-mailed RIO, never got a response.

Steve

I will go one better. I had a flat of RIO shells that had two boxes missing. Brian Shyda gave me two boxes with no questions asked.

Chester White

It still speaks poorly for the ammo manufacturer. It DOES speak highly for your supplier. They are a good outfit.

I don't use or reload any shells manufactured by UEE (Rio, Kemen, Mirage, etc.) I have reasons for that choice and this thread is a confirmation that nothing has changed for me to reconsider my decision. There are a lot of shooters that use these shells and win with them. That is a testament to the shooters that they could win, IN SPITE of using these shells. Poor cold weather performance is the deal killer for me, along with basewad migrations. The manufacturer's lack of concern over these issues, when I contacted them, was the final nail in that coffin. If I shot in warm weather only and did not reload, it might not bother me. I shoot in warm weather, but shoot more in the cold. When my shells do not perform well in colder weather, then that is unacceptable. ALL that said, I never did see a basewad EXIT the hull and I've never had a box of them come up short. I didn't use them long enough, since I gave away the unused portion of my first flat to the competition. That decision was based on about twenty very off sounding loads out of the first box.

Rio Ammo did respond to my email today. They said if I provide them with the lot number they will make good on the missing shells. We will see.

I emailed Rio the info they requested and am waiting for their response. I also asked them to read this posting.

Had the same problem of being short 5 shells in 4 "Estates" boxes at the grand 3 years ago. After I was done shooting I took the empty boxes back to Federal. I was told that there was nothing that could be done at that time. Rep said he would forward info to the company and sorry it had happened. My friend was with me and the Federal Rep gave us both a Federal Cap and two federal tee shirts for the inconvenient missing shells were. Fair trade- 2 caps 4 tee for 5 shells. Have not had a problem with estates since then and I shoot them quite often.

Still no reply from my email to Rio ammo.

Seems like they are really concerned about it. I'd hammer them by email and phone if it bothered me. I just decided never to use the ammo again, since their concern was underwhelming.

Yea, I'm starting to get the feeling that they don't care about their customers much. I'm still getting no response from my emails, guess I have to start calling as well.

The contact I was given is:

Andy Street, Sales & Marketing, Rio Ammo, 931-729-0880

Maybe someone will have luck getting Mr. Street to respond to them. Other than the first response asking for Lot #s which I emailed back to him, Mr Street has not replied to any more of my emails or voicemail.

Just not feelin' the LUV, are ya? I think you got the message quite clearly. It's the same one I got when I had issues with their loads.

I don't think i want to buy any RIO shell's.

I just picked up 5 flats of Estates at Shyda's $51.95 ea. They also have a $20 mail in rebate on AA's right now.

I finally heard from Mr Street today. He says he will do what it takes to make it right. I will let you know how it turns out.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that if you google "rio shells" this thread is about 5th from the top on the first page. No body likes a bad reputation.

ss

Only a month for a response. I wonder how long it will take them to "make it right"?

This is a copy of the email Mr Street sent me today:

Richard, After further review and speaking with the production manager we have discovered the problem. One of the machines back in July had an issue with the sensor that checked for 5 shells per layer. This malfunction allowed boxes to be released that were short 1 or 2 shells. We have since fixed the problems and believe that boxes missing shells are no longer an issue. The shells that you referenced were manufactured in July and we fixed the issue in early August. I can't say all the cases in the market have full boxes, but I can say going forward we believe we have fixed the problem. If you run into further issues please let me know and I will do all that I can to fix the problem. Thanks again for the heads up and have a good day.

Andy Street, Sales & Marketing, Rio Ammo

But did they send you the missing shells? You should have had a free flat for the trouble!

I wouldn't shoot rios if they were free the best cheap shell on the market is estates shoot them they always have a full box and any way if you can afford to shoot trap shoot the best shell possible like fed. or rem hell reloads are better than rios.

Mr. Street did send me 4 boxes of Rio's, they arrived yesterday. His email does make me wonder just how many flats with shells shy are in the pipeline.