Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Where did Winchester's quality go?

Recently opened two 50 count bags of WW 300WM brass and 25 were total garbage. Split necks wrinkled shoulders and case bodies. I will not use the other 75 for fear of hidden flaws in the bases. Left email with pictures to Winchester and voice mail but no response yet.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wnqdwqh0z042d45/A%20block%20of%2025%20bad.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nn8eyud92sp4w6v/Three%20more.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vkxgz78xk70tjuv/Three%20bad%20cases.jpg?dl=0

Winchester brass quality has been in the dumper for a few years now.

Sadly, I agree.

I hope your customer service experience is better than the one I had a few years ago when I got a couple bags of 25-35 brass that split on the first firing, no matter the load. I was asked to send the fired and unfired cases in and that I'd be taken care of. After many months of being given the royal run-around, I finally gave up. They never made even one effort to contact me.

On the other hand, a recent batch of 30-30 brass I purchased was as good as anything I've seen from them in a long, long while.

I got a bag of .300 Win from them this year. I tossed them away as soon as I could get a batch from another company.

Well, that is a far cry from WW Super brass which I still snaffle when I find it.

Olin hasn't manufactured brass for quite a while now, and it seems like there is absolutely no effort made to check the product coming from the contractors. Sometimes it doesn't look like specifications are even provided to them! I don't use their garbage any more, unless it's old stuff I still have from before they quit.

It's hard to believe that brass of that low quality can make it through the factory and out to the public. I've been buying Norma, Lapua and Nosler brass lately but still rely on Winchester for .250 Savage brass.

[So who makes Winchester brass now?

Elvis I have had good luck with Hornady brass.

Well this makes me nervous about the Winchester 30-06 brass I just ordered.

There are a few things you can do to lessen the chance that you will buy bad brass, or any other component.

1. Some bags are clear. Lie them on the table and start moving the brass around. Look for imperfections. If you find any, tell the clerk.

2. For containers that you cannot see through, take them to the clerk, express your concerns and open it up in front of him. He may wish to do this for you. For the price being charged, a visual inspection should not be refused. I always check brass and have never been refused.

3. When you are looking to buy, replace or augment brass, Google is your friend. "Winchester ammunition recalls" or similar, will produce results for firearms, loaded ammunition and components. Check manufacturer's home pages regularly to see if any factory ammunition or components are listed.They will post recalls. If you're shopping and there is a component recall, have the lot no. handy for your trip to the LGS.

For example - Remington Safety Centre - https://www.remington.com/support/safety-center

4. Do what the benchresters do: When you buy brass/primers/powder/bullets, record the lot nos. And DO NOT mix them! It's handy if you read about a recall on this, or any other board. Or if you find a recall listed yourself.

5. Never be shy about contacting any company about potential problems - especially if you discover one yourself! Phone them and email. Keep after them if they do not answer right away. Get others involved if you have a problem and they do not answer. Be polite. They do want to hear from you, especially if they could get sued.

5. If you read or hear of something that can be confirmed, pass it on. Others will appreciate your information.

I have not/willnot buy Winny brass, but, still have 1000s for my various rifles and quite a lot is 10 yrs. old still in bags.

I now buy only Lapua, Norma and Nosler brass, have also lots of Remmy and Federal, no Hornady.

Recently, the young manager of the big, newish Cabela's gun dept.near my home in BC's Fraser Valley, called my attention to some Nosler .300 Win. cases with very noticeable differences in neck lengths aa they came from the factory box. She, was quite concerned and so would I be in her place as Nosler makes a big issue of "ready to load" and these were hardly that.

So, since I bought five-50 rd. boxes of Nosler cases for my KMA-.280AI, four boxes for my NO.3 .280Rem, a full custom with a Krieger tube on an early HVA, with Wisner-Timney mods and damned near as light as the KMA, I was also concerned, but, no issues to date.

I try to buy Lapua, RWS and Norma, the Canadian prices are gawdawful, but, for costly rifles for hunting, it all works out.

I guess all manufacturers have QC issues, from time to time and I wonder how the new Starline brass for rifles is?

Do these issues affect their loaded ammo as well?


Okie John

Can't say, I only have some 10 year old .308Win. factory stuff.

Some years ago, I gave a nephew my Sako Finnwolf, .308 with spare clip and a scope. He hunted and shot deer with it, but, then moved to Australia, got married and now lives there. He was not allowed to bring the guns I had given him to OZ, so, gave them back to me and I since sold them......kept the ammo he had bought in bulk at my suggestion and still have some.

It SEEMS OK in my custom light Mod. 70 STS Classic, Micky FWT Edge, slabbed, trued and so on, Talley-Brockman mounts-sight, Sourdough and built at Martini Gunmakers maybe ten years back. So, I guess it is alright, but, since my only two .308s left are this and a Browning 7500 O/U .308x12ga combo gun, I am buying Lapua brass as it is now available here in Canada, which has not always been the case.

I figure, for the difference in price, who cares, buy 200-300 of the best cases for each of your rifles and done.

Holy crap! That's a screw-up in QC of major proportions.

Having said that, I just compared the weight and neck wall thickness of 243 WW brass--bought almost two years ago at the height of the craziness--to Hornady and Nosler 243 brass. The WW brass was better--period. Weight was clustered together, with only one outlier,, and neck wall thickness was closer too (although I only measured 10 pieces of each).

THIS

I bought new Hornady 7X65R, 8X57, and 300 WSM recently, and it was all very good and at a reasonable price.

lapua makes the very best brass, nosler and hornady makes good brass,remington is ok ,Winchester brass now don`t buy it. that`s what people tell me at the shop and on the range too. I only use lapua,nosler and hornady now myself when I buy it

Supposedly, the "Winchester" brass in the red and black packaging is made by Hornady. The old stiff in the blue and white packaging was made by Winchester/Olin. I don't have any inside connections but this was noted here on the Fire in the past year or so...

Lapua brass is certainly more expensive, but I have never had a defective case.

For most of my shooting, Lapua is all I use. If I am not able to get Lapua cases, I will use Norma or Prvi Partizan. I do not believe that there is such a thing as absolute reliability, but these three, in my experience, have had the fewest problems. That might raise the hackles of some folks.

In the US, brass can be made by different companies for most of the manufacturers. i.e. Federal or Norma for Nosler. And others, when necessary. Like competition shooters, you have to keep your ear to the ground when buying components. No one is immune from running a bad batch of brass.

Being Canadian, you'd think that getting supplies from the US would be easy, but it's gotten harder year after year. Bullets, brass, primers and powder are always in short supply. Canadian stores carried a lot of Euro stuff years ago, slowed, then picked up again. As a result, I have always been partial to Euro stuff. Supply for what I shoot has been more reliable.

Can you guys get Sako cartridges? I just bought a couple of boxes of Sako 222 Rem. 'spensive at $34 Cdn ($25.50 US) a box, plus 13% tax. No doubt it is made by Lapua. Once I fire it, I will give the empties the twice over. http://www.sako.fi/cartridges




This is a list of the bullets and cases they make. http://www.lapua.com/en/reloading-components/lapua-components-list.html Your supplier may not carry or be able to get all of it.

Cases - http://www.lapua.com/en/reloading-components/cases.html

I pay $105 CDN ($79US) per 100 for 222 and 223 (made into 6x45mm) match Lapua brass. 308 Lapua is the cheapest brass at $95/100 ($72US/100). For those of you that shoot 6.5 Creedmoor, it's $145/100 ($109US/100).

Prvi is considerably cheaper, and I favour it over US stuff. 223 cases are $47/100 ($35US/100). 308 is $75/100 or $56US/100.

Whenever I need to get new brass, I always inspect it, with a couple of exceptions.

Winchester was just getting past their primer issue, and now it's brass.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...stomer-service-phone-number#Post12379748

Page 2 here

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...e-257-rbts-brass-on-aisle-5#Post12235649

Well, this week discovered that I needed some .30-06 brass for a new project. Since my wife had to make a run to Las Cruces yesterday, I rode along with her and stopped at SW. All that they had was Winchester brass.

Looking through the transparent parts of the plastic bags, I couldn't see any obvious problems so I bought a couple. Returning home last night, I opened them and carefully inspected them. There were 51 cases in each bag. The cases were all bright and unblemished. All of the flash holes were centered and the primer pockets were spot on. There was one case neck in the first bag and two in the second bag in which the case mouth had been boogered a bit, but both straightened right out when they were run through the neck sizing die along with all the others. I weighed a random sample of about twenty and the extreme spread was 1.9 grains--about half the extreme spread in a similar sample of Norma .338-06 cases.

I realize that two bags is a pretty small sample in the grand scheme of things, but this is actually some of the best looking brass that I have bought over the last few years, including a couple of lots from Norma and Nosler.

good news is always welcome around here!
Our SW has mostly Hornady brass.

That's good. All the things being equal, QC is not as bad as is sometimes reported.

The reputation of a company, and amount of bad brass they make, is judged in part by the number of people posting in web forums. For example, if Winchester sold 100,000 pieces of 30-06 this week, and someone got a bag of 50 with one or two bad cases, we tend to curse Winchester and all their brass. I do not think that Winchester, or any company, would still be in business if they constantly produced substandard products.

Report it, if you get a bad bag. Take pictures. If you want to get their attention, it's better to write a letter, enclose pix printed on ordinary paper, and make sure they are aware of the lot no. Letters still get more attention than emails.

For people that have not seen Prvi packaging, brass comes packaged this way. Easy to check.

The last Hornady brass I bought had (Winchester) on the invoice lol. That was a few years ago though and Hornady are manufacturing their own brass now.

I've noticed some .257 Roberts brass has finally come into the shops. It's Winchester though. I'll have to buy a couple of bags as over here you get it while you can.

Sako brass is made by Sako themselves since 1928. Very uniform well made brass though found it a bit softer than Lapua when using it in my 6ppc for Short range benchrest with higher pressure loads we tend to use, couldn't get the life out of it we get with lapua before the primer pockets got loose..They also make their own proprietary component bullets and also use nosler, barnes, scirocco possibly others in some of their ammunition. Don't know whose powder they use probably various manufacturers but wouldn't be surprised if much of it was VhitaVuori.

Winchester's rimfire ammo has been pretty crappy of late, too. The move to Mississippi did NOT improve the quality of Winchester ammo, if anything, it roughed it up even worse than before.

Several years ago while i was still working at the shop a customer returned this box of ammo exchanged for a different brand. It got sent up to us to use as test fire ammo.

Interesting.....

I should have been clearer. I was referring to the bullets. They appear to be Lapua soft points. The picture is too big to post, so I provided a link.

http://www.lapua.com/upload/3-reloading-components/bullets/png/BulletSoftPointE372.png

You wanted virgin brass, you got virgin brass.

Roflmao! Yup!

Brass Larvae!

I have not had any issues with brass and I've bought quite a bit of Winchester brass lately.

If I am trying to get the last 1/4 MOA accuracy out of my loads, I'll weigh the brass and check for uniform neck thickness, run through a full length sizer and trim to length before loading. (Granted some brass manufacturers brass doesn't require this, but I've got a little more time on my hands lately).

If I'm happy with a 1 MOA hunting load which lately I usually am unless it is a varmint cartridge or a antelope load, I don't bother.

Probably being made in the Congo!!

Winchester is no closer to being a "Winchester" than a light bulb is to Thomas Edison. What was done years ago and the relation to the original is sometimes better (light bulb) but other times not so much (Winchester)...

This thread had me worried. Not long ago I bought 2 bags of Winchester 257 Roberts brass, when it was available.

I just checked and was pleasantly surprised to find that, at least visually, there were no defects.

A sample of one.

I just bought five bags of .270 with no visible defects. On the other hand, every bag of WSM I have ever purchased had 1-2 rejected because of folds in the shoulder. I just figured that the folds were caused by the angle of the shoulder combined with the fat size of the cartridge body compared to the neck.

I bought two bags of Winchester .270 WSM brass a few months back. First bag has been loaded with no throw aways. Haven't opened the second bag yet.

To all: Remember not to overreact to what is posted on the Internets!

I have probably bought more Winchester brass than any other brand and traditionally it was my go-to.
A couple of years ago I bought a couple of batches of 22-250 that had folds in the necks so bad that some were actually split. About 25% of 200 were unusable. They were very nice and sent me a check to replace them after I sent them back.
My latest batch of 6.5x55 was pretty good but did have 1 that was .050 too short.
All companies have their issues from time to time it seems. I'll probably still use Winchester brass but will be prepared to do some of the QC for them.
I was 0 for 3 on Remington 300 Weatherby brass. 3 bags of '50' each had 49 but at least they were all usable.

Winchester just sent me a refund check for $84 to cover the bad 300WM brass in this thread, along with a letter stating that it was turned over to the QC department. I had asked for replacement brass but none was in stock.

Oh well I just went and purchased 100 rounds of Nosler 300 WM brass.