access 2003 problem

SELECT * INTO [test_table] FROM [old_table] ORDER BY [PH_ORDER];

(PH_ORDER is a unique numeric field)

I thought this would be straight forward, but in some cases (particularly tables > 10,000 records) the resulting table will have some blocks of records (about 20) out of order. Typically when this occurs the table when opened will start with ,say, records 40-60 and then go back to 1.

I need to connect our printing application directly to the Table, at present it is printing out of order.

Does anyone have an explanation as to why this might be happening?