Independence is the budget brand of ATK. If I had to hazard a guess, I would suggest that they use blem bullets from their proper factory brands. Those being Federal, Speer, CCI and American Eagle. Or blem Speer component bullet products.
I had always thought it was kind of silly to produce yet another head stamp for what was essentially a budget brand, but yeah, they do use the *I* head stamp.
I know that Federal has two distinctly different brass sources...I believe that one of them is "good old" Federal that's been in operation for decades and the other is something newer, likely from the ATK acquisition. Consider this-- Federal 9mm brass comes in two totally and noticeably different forms.
You've got the stuff that seems most common, the extruded brass that says .F C. on it, and that extruded brass looks
exactly like the Blazer and CCI marked brass. The case head where the stamping is seems a bit rounded and the font is soft and each of the three different names look like they came from the same printing device.
But then you've got the classic larger font FC stamped 9mm brass that is not extruded. I believe these two absolutely different Federal 9mm brass pieces come from entirely different operations.
Why, considering just that by itself, does ATK also need *I* stamped brass?
I don't know...and maybe ATK has been saying the same thing. My guess is that there was a huge supply of *I* brass and they simply produced from that supply until it ran out and now they are just using the Blazer marked brass and not making any more *I* brass.
Remember, these guys also own the Lake City facility, Alliant powders, CCI primers and the entire catalog of Speer/RCBS/Weaver and the former Blount companies. Among God knows what else.
If there is a monopoly in ammo or components, ATK has to be
by far the closest thing to that.
So if they killed off the *I* head stamp... they've still got a half dozen others and some I've probably forgotten!
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On top of that, I have a firearm that prefers factory.
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Not to "call you out" or anything, but I can't even grasp this concept. Perhaps I'm missing something, but -MY- firearms don't get to offer their opinion as I'm in charge of their diet. I've got a slew of rimfire that eats factory ammo, but nothing else does unless I'm testing defense ammo for carry.