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

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.