FYI, Avoid Winchester White Box

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Idcurrie

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I purchased a box of 270 Winchester 130gr silver box super-x ammunition. They seemed to fire well enough but upon cleaning the rifle at home I noticed that there is now a deep etching around where the primer is on my bolt face!!!

Examining the brass reveals that three out of the 20 rounds had ruptured primers!

I'll be calling Winchester tomorrow. They should expect to pay for all repairs to my firearm.

By advised, this ammo is crap!
 
One bad box does not make crap. Bad luck for you to have found a couple rounds like that, but many millions of rounds of "white box" have been safely and succesfully used.Millions more will continue to be used.Good luck with getting Winchester to fix anything.Have a bright and shiny day.
 
Sadly, Winchester will not do a damn thing regarding their ammunition damaging my expensive firearm. I am now looking into if it's possible to file in small claims against a U.S. company. The cost of the rifle is worth it.

Let it be known that this is not a reputable company to deal with as they do not stand behind the product they sell.
 
You vs Winchester and their lawyers???? :eek:



Idcurrie said:
Sadly, Winchester will not do a damn thing regarding their ammunition damaging my expensive firearm. I am now looking into if it's possible to file in small claims against a U.S. company. The cost of the rifle is worth it.

Let it be known that this is not a reputable company to deal with as they do not stand behind the product they sell.
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Ive Shot Hundreds of rounds of the Winchester Super-X .303 ammo with no problem whatsoever. I also get fairly good groups with it out of my hunting Enfield.

No offense intended, but you ever consider your firearm could play a part. I mean even a Ferrari will have a problem now and then (Like the 458's catching fire for example) so a minor problem with your gun could be an issue.
 
I find WWB to shoot pretty good ot of my MR-1 and no malfuctions, ok one round did no go out of 1200 rounds... JP.
 
Your post title says Winchester White Box. But your post body talks about silver box Super x.

2 different ammo's

Silver box Super X has always worked fine for me. On the other hand I've had a few boxes of Winchester USA White Box and it is complete crap. No punctured primers but a hole lot of FTF's in my AR and all sorts of slam fire in my SKS. Where as all other ammo's have worked flawlessly in both rifles
 
Just a quick word that commercial ammo may not work in a sks. It's recommended to stick with milspec ammo in a sks to prevent slam fires. WWB slam fired in one of my sks's as well. But in my other guns it all has worked flawlessly (9mm, 223, 7.62x39 and .308 )
 
No offense intended, but you ever consider your firearm could play a part.
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Has fired hundreds of rounds of Federal and Federal premium was 0 issues.

After this experience, I took a look at the fired brass from my 30'06. This is a different caliber and obviously a different rifle.

This ammo is Winchester Black Box Supreme CT Ballistic Silver tips with the nickle plated brass and yellow primers. I noticed that about half the primers on this ammo are completely flattened and some of them backed out so they are no longer recessed or flush with the cartridge. This rifle has no problem with any other ammunition and no other fired 30'06 brass from this rifle show this primer/pressure problem.

So I guess these cartridges in 30'06 from Winchester are loaded WAAAY too hot or the primers are not seated correctly.

I have an unused box of the stuff (for 270) except with accubonds. When weighing them, I find that the weight of each cartridge varies by up to 3.5 grains! Normally, I would chalk that up to variences in the brass but upon weighing the spent brass, there is only minimal differences in weight.

When I weigh Federal premium and federal blue box the difference in weight between cartridges is always less than 1 grain and my hand loads vary by only 0.5 - 0.8 grains.

The Winchester ammunition seems to have empirically measured large variances in powder charges. What a bunch of sloppy garbage!

You vs Winchester and their lawyers????
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Sure. They may have lawyers on retainer but are they really going to sent one to Edmonton to fight a small claims court filing? They could hire a local lawyer but that would cost more than just fixing the gun. Not to mention the potential bad publicity.

We're only talking about shaving down the bolt face and then moving the barrel back to adjust the head space.
 
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Idcurrie said:
They may have lawyers on retainer but are they really going to sent one to Edmonton to fight a small claims court filing? They could hire a local lawyer but that would cost more than just fixing the gun. Not to mention the potential bad publicity.
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I think you sorely overestimate the effectiveness of your small claims action. Even if they ignore you and you win by default, how do you collect? Might want to consider keeping your money for fixing the firearm.
 
You can sell the debt to a collection agency. The cost to file is less than $80. It may be worth it just to register my dissatisfaction in a more forceful way.

Between these two ruptured primers in .270, the flattened and backed off primers in the 'supreme' 30'06, and the huge variances in the weight of the cartridges it's obvious to me that Winchester is ####!

I decided to try these three boxes out as they were between $3-$12 cheaper than their respective federal counterparts. Now I know why. It's definitely false economy.
 
I'm curious as to what damage was done. If its you wanting them to take the black off from around the bolt. Your just making a small situation much bigger then it needs to be. Just my .02
 
Dave_D said:
I'm curious as to what damage was done. If its you wanting them to take the black off from around the bolt. Your just making a small situation much bigger then it needs to be. Just my .02
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The bolt face is gas etched. The metal is gone. The only fix is to lap the remaining bolt face away to make it flush again and then move the barrel in to correct the new headspace.

Ignoring it could result in other primer material being extruded into the gas etched area or could present a safety risk in the future in the event of another primer failure.

It's not just 'black on the bolt'.
 
I beg to differ....

I had a winchester super x .17 hmr case rupture in my marlin 917. Had to knock it out with a cleaning rod, and it was split up one side from rim to neck. I phoned the number on the website (US 800 number) and was directed to Olin canada.

The bad news? There aren't any gunsmiths around that i can take my rifle to to get it checked out and/or repaired if necessary. The good news? He wanted me to send it halfway across the country to Epps to have it looked at, on THEIR dime. And not i pay, they reimburse, but i use their UPS account number and they pay for repairs. Also, i have a bunch of coupons for free winchester ammo coming. The guy i talked to told me: with the .17 hmr ammo, we can have 10 fail to fire out of 100000 before we do a recall. A case rupture is a different story, though, and will be investigated. We are going to send you a bunch of coupons for free ammo. Stuff like this, most likely a double charge, doesn't happen very often, but when it does, we want to make it right. Are you SURE you don't want to send your rifle to be looked at?

Sounds like decent customer service to me.
 
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mwjones, it's good that you have had a good experience but I have not. I have not been referred to anyone (not Olin, or anyone).

I can't seem to find anyone willing to help me at Winchester. Maybe I'll try again on Monday to see if I can get someone reasonable to help me.

It sounds like in your case, with a double charge, there is the possibility of tremendous liability due to bodily harm or death if your rifle explodes in your face.

In any case, I will try again on Monday now that I know the people I have been talking to are not correct and there is a chance of satisfaction.
 
Bare in mind that Winchester (olin) and Hornady would be taking a posable hit from mwjones problem.
While Winchester alone is responsable for white box ammo.
Last year a buddy and I went out shooting and he had 2 in a box of 30-06 ammo fail to fire.
I would also be curious about your firing pin protrusion and point.
Did any of the non ruptured cases show signs of primer cratering,setback,flattening?
 
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