winchester brass sucks

chappy

chappy

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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?
 
My new Win .45-70 brass has been good over several loadings including hot loads so I'm thinking you got a bad batch. You might be able to take them back and try for an exchange or refund but this is WSS we're talking about here so you might be just as well to siphon the gas out of your vehicle and burn it to save the wasted trip. Even Lapua puts out the odd lemon batch, it just sucks when a guy has to eat the cost. Hopefully you can save the rest.
 
I've picked up quite a bit of 300wsm brass at the various pits near Sudbury that people go to shoot at, and I have noticed that in the last year or so, I'm starting to see a lot of Win brass with split necks. So, yes, it does look like something has happened to the quality of Winchester brass.
 
well i bought 100 new rem 300 wsm brass and i will try again. trouble is it takes quite a while to do a full prep job on 100 brass. i could be loading instead! or shooting.
 
Write to Olin and complain. Save the split cases. They might ask you to send them back and give you a credit. It went that way for a few of us who had split cases right out of the bag
 
I just bought a bag of 50 6.5x55 Winchester brass.
4 split necks, right out of the bag.
The burr on the inside of the case mouth was so bad, I'm sure they adjust the length by hammering it shorter.
Just fired off 26 of them this evening, and anything over a starting charge caused a bulge just above the web.
Sure enough, My Nosler brass measures ~ .475" the Winchester ~.470"
Oh well, use it for plinking loads, I guess, and buy real brass for anything serious.
I'll try e-mailing Winchester, if nothing else it might make me feel a bit better :mad:
 
I have thousands of pcs of winchester brass. Bought some more a few weeks ago. 223rem brass some of has been loaded ~11 times, 30-06 I get average of 7. Seems good to me.
 
There where two guys in the local LeBarons talking about exactly this and one of them had some split brass. They said it was about 30-40% of the cases that would split on first firing of factory loaded .300WSM from Winchester. Perhaps it is an annealing problem at the factory? I stopped buying any Winchester brass over a year ago because so much of it was having issues whether factory loaded ammo or virgin brass.
 
Personally, I have not had any Negative experiences with Winchester brass, and I use a lot of that brand.
However, a friend of mine recently bought a box of Winchester 7mm Rem Mag - 175 grain loads that split
the necks of 2 of the first 5 cartridges fired!!
His rifle is a custom job with an aftermarket barrel and a very tight chamber and neck, so it is definitely
not rifle related.
Something may be going on, but unless we make them aware, obviously nothing will change.
Regards, Eagleye.
 
+1 more for success with winchester .223 brass. Factory rounds were cheap white box 45 grain HP. I've loaded the same 100 cases 12 times... No split necks, or signs of head separation. Primer pockets are ok, but getting a touch on the loose side. I did see two really bad batches of new .243 cases, and for that reason will only use once fired winchester brass.
 
I use Winchester brass for everything but WSM cartridges now. For some reason the are splitting on first firing almost half the time. Many others are having the same issue with WSM brass made by Winchester, most noteably the 300 WSM.
 
The ones that were splitting for me were the 45gr jhp white box factory loads in 223 Remington. I'd say I've now had about 60 split. I still have 400 unfired. Too bad since I bought them mostly for the brass which is garbage.

To clarify: sizing has nothing to do with it. It's splitting on the first firing of factory loaded ammunition.
 
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I have been using Win brass for 20 + years, but in the last year the quality seems to have gone downhill. Rejects right out of the bag, and not as many firings, walls seem to be thinner etc... Time to try some other brands.
 
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.
 
it shocked me it was that bad. i have a cupboard full of new win brass. none newer than three or four years ago. never an issue. usually the primer pockets give up and become loose long before i get splits. i neck up or down as needed and rarely loose a case. i'm going to send winchester customer service a picture and see what they will do for me.
 
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