winchester brass sucks

Maybe try some Nosler brass.

I never had issues with Winchester brass or 1-shot factory nickel ones. I use the nickel ones for hunting. Some have been reloaded twice already...no complaints. 300WM and 270WSM calibers.
 
I remember have bought on the net from a Canadian distributor 100 pieces of Win 45/70 new brass. All the flash holes where off center !

Poor quality control.

Mush
 
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Remington ran our American Lake City Army Ammunition plant from 1941 to 1985 when Winchester got the contract to produce ammunition at the Army plant. Winchester lost the contract at Lake City in 2001 to ATK and then sold off its brass manufacturing facilities.

After loosing the lucrative government contract at Lake City both Remington and Winchester started going down hill with Winchester being hit the hardest and selling off assets to stay in business. Bottom line, Winchester doesn't even make its own brass for its cases and the quality of their brass is going down hill.
 
bigedp51 said:
Remington ran our American Lake City Army Ammunition plant from 1941 to 1985 when Winchester got the contract to produce ammunition at the Army plant. Winchester lost the contract at Lake City in 2001 to ATK and then sold off its brass manufacturing facilities.

After loosing the lucrative government contract at Lake City both Remington and Winchester started going down hill with Winchester being hit the hardest and selling off assets to stay in business. Bottom line, Winchester doesn't even make its own brass for its cases and the quality of their brass is going down hill.
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Interesting. Thanks for the info. Do you think the fact that Rem ran the plant played some small part in the adoption of the .223 Rem/ 5.56mm or was it just a coincidence?
 
recce said:
Interesting. Thanks for the info. Do you think the fact that Rem ran the plant played some small part in the adoption of the .223 Rem/ 5.56mm or was it just a coincidence?
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Remington was contracted to make the prototype ammunition by the Army, the fact that Remington was the contractor to make ammunition at Lake City was a coincidence. The Army didn't want to adopt the M16 rifle or its .224 caliber ammunition, the adoption of the M16 rifle meant the death of the Army's Springfield Armory and all future Army small arms would be contracted out to civilian contractors and no longer be designed and made by the U.S. Army.
 
Overland said:
Just got some new Winchester brass in 7x57; weighed them all.

They show about the same weight spread as R-P brass, but weigh 19 grains less.

Necks show no colours from annealing, so after reading of all the split necks I will do that before firing.

Otherwise it looks like good stuff.
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Update: Annealed, neck sized, trimmed and chamfered 25 cases. (Lee collet neck size die)

They now show the normal colour of annealed unfired brass, and they all were longer than the trim-to-length referenced to the Lee tool. New R-P brass is always shorter than that, so the tool only cuts after 2 or three firings.
It felt as if the decapping pin was hitting - had to turn most cases to ease its passage through the flash hole.
 
chappy said:
after many years my stash of win 300wsm ran out. was out of 325 wsm too. i bought two new bags from wholesale. i prepped 50 for my 300 and necked up 50 for my 325. i was going to work up new loads with rl17 so i wanted virgin brass. i loaded three different powder weights in both with proven bullets. 180 swift scirroc for the 300 and hornady 195 il for the 325. one fireing of the 300 wsm and 50% of the case necks split. 66% of the 325's split. anyware from little cracks a couple mm long to the whole neck splitting. no hot loads. so much for quality control at wichester. my guess the brass was not annealed properly. both batches will have to be deprimed and annealed to even be usuable. this is my first bad experiance with win brass but most of my win brass is from my stock pile a few years old. anybody have similar results with new production win brass?
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Must be that new crappy brass that's made in China with case walls that look as thin as aluminum foil.
I've given up on Winchester and Remington brass.
Starline brass is my goto reloading brass that I get from the Bullet Barn.
 
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Overland said:
Update: Annealed, neck sized, trimmed and chamfered 25 cases. (Lee collet neck size die)

They now show the normal colour of annealed unfired brass, and they all were longer than the trim-to-length referenced to the Lee tool. New R-P brass is always shorter than that, so the tool only cuts after 2 or three firings.
It felt as if the decapping pin was hitting - had to turn most cases to ease its passage through the flash hole.
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Loaded 30, felt no friction when seating primers. This bodes ill for reloading many times, and after firing the starting loads there was darkness around the primer.

Otherwise all 20 fired performed as usual, and no split necks even with powder charges over Nosler's maximum.

I would buy these again if they fix the primer pocket dimension.
 
anneal and see if it's better.
I anneal all precision brass.
I don't anneal bulk 223 AR15 brass because it would take too long, and it's already long enough to prep that brass just so I can go crazy at my target and empty 6 lar15 mags in a row....
I could buy an annealing machine, but for 500$ I can get like 5000 cases, and I think that's going to last me a lifetime, so it's a bit pointless to me.
I don't have hours to waste to anneal 1000 223 cases, too long.
when it splits it splits I guess, I'll just toss it in the recycle bin and buy new 1f brass.
 
I've refused to use Winchester brass for years. It work hardens much faster than other brands.

I use Lapua, Remington and Privi.
 
I had to throw out about 40-50 Winchester brass yesterday. Alongside about 15-16 Federal brass. The Federal had the primer pocket too loose with the second firing. (typical) The Winchester brass had the same issue but I suspect this was about the tenth or eleventh round of handloads. All of it was for 30-06 loaded for the Garand. The R-P brass is just fine so far, along with the mix of PMC/LC.
 
Too bad about the brass going south. I have long preferred Win brass.

Several years back my brother had factory Win Failsafes in .338 win mag split badly upon initial firing (silver brass), but I have never personally had bad experiences with Win brass.
 
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