There are so many types of ammo for target practice, hunting, and self-defense - and a lot of different manufacturers.
I know a lot of us swear by our carry ammo and wouldn’t change it without a lot of research, but what about your training ammo?
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Not really, I shoot whatever my range has for range ammo that particular weekend. My .45 seem to gobble it all up. EDC, I am sticking with Hornady Critical Defense for now.
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I refuse using steel cased ammo and polymer coated projectiles.
Always had hard time shooting both.
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It depends on the gun. I have a couple of S&W Model 41’s (because 1 wasn’t enough I guess) and they really like CCI. Now they will eat ELEY when it’s warm, but ELEY when it’s cold is awful. My customized 10-22 shoots anything so that gets Federal Automatch. My friends 10-22 misfires with anything but the cheap bucket of Remington gold.
My daughter hates ELEY (she thinks it’s evil). She likes Federal red Box.
My carry guns seem to shoot any of the self defense ammo so I’ll buy what ever is on sale. Now, for practice ammo in the carry guns, I usually shoot a better quality though I’m going to clean it before I throw defense rounds back in it.
I have some Tulamo and that stuff is the absolute dirtiest ammo I have ever shot. I use that in my 1911. It requires you clean the gun after each range day where my blazer brass does not. I would never use this is my carry gun for practice. I don’t know if I will buy it again, though the price certainly is excellent.
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I bought half a dozen 50 round boxes of 38 Spl rounds, all different rands, just to see which ones I shot best, and which might be dirtier that the others. (I dropped LRN long ago, so these were all FMJs.)
What I learned was that I don’t shoot well enough yet to evaluate a product’s accuracy. The ones I chose all cost about the same, and prices varied over time. The three “clean” ones turned out to be not so clean and got dropped from my list, one at a time. I’m on the last brand now so we’ll see how that turns out.
I wont buy steel cased ammo or anything made in Russia. I know that may sound silly but I just dont trust the quality control. In truth, I tend to only buy American made ammunition.
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I won’t use steel cased ammunition at all and will only plink with aluminum cased if I somehow wound up with a few rounds and want to get rid of it. IMO, I feel that steel-on-steel will accelerate wear of every part the case comes in contact with whereas brass, since it is a softer metal, should wear first thereby minimizing wear on the parts it comes in contact with. Does that make me an ammunition snob? I don’t feel like it does but…opinions surely vary. Not a big Blazer fan. Seem to remember more failures with Blazer than any other brand.
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Ditto on steel (or aluminum) case ammo. If it doesn’t have decent brass so I can reload it, I don’t buy it. Brass is The most expensive component for target ammo (you can spend $$ on high quality bullets), so if I can reuse it multiple times I’m way ahead.
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I’m a blazer brass and Magtech for training. My range typically runs really good deals on bother in 1000 round boxes.
For defense it’s Sig Elite V-Crown
I will admit, I saw your photo on another thread and it’s what made me post this topic. I won’t shoot Tulamo because of how dirty it is. The range I shoot at won’t even allow it. It’s a total preference thing, but I don’t like how dirty it makes my firearms. I’d rather put more rounds through my gun to make it that dirty. 
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I got it down to 12 cents a round! I really did it as a test and I have yet to have a misfire with it, but it’s disgustingly dirty.
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To an extent, yes.
Ammo needs to be safe, consistent and accurate,
Also some ammo leaves really nasty, hard to clean soot all over everything in close proximity–not good. Besides being a pain to clean I’ve had the build up bind one pistol action to a halt,
I also reload, so any center fire ammo I buy will be brass cased and boxer primed in order to supply brass for my reloading cache.
This basically is my criteria
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I won’t shoot steel case, part of me believes that’s hard on the extractors. The only brands I won’t use in brass or aluminum are Tulamo, and Winchester white box. Dirty, inaccurate, and misfires.
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I have had a problem with Tul Ammo feeding in several different guns.
Good Tulammo requires good Russian pistol for proper functionality 
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Requires you be strlong like Bull. And drink much Vodka!
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Not really a snob. Remington 22 Thunderbolt seems to make a miss everywhere. I’ve been happy with Federal and CCI .22, CCI WMR, and centerfire in Blazer and Winchester whitebox.
I heard only bad about steel cased and Tulammo. Deals are too good right now to shoot anything you don’t like/trust.
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A guy I know almost lost his prized SKS (not to mention injury) because of Tulamo.
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I probably am. I avoid the steel cased ammo and try to buy American (Federal is my favorite for training ammo). The main thing for me is the training ammo has to shoot to the same point of impact as the CCW ammo.
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Buy American!
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