Sketchy factory ammo?

Bullets all the same at same OAL?
I wouldn't worry about the primer sealant, I am seeing light red Winchester primers in reloading supplies.
Might be the last box on the shelf that every Tom, Dick, and Harry has fingered.

looks new to me. Foam is made in a range, and won't fit everything perfect. Common for store employees to take rounds out of the box to show customers.

On a related note, I was digging through some range brass, 300AAC, and ran into a very well known maker, and the brass was very clearly out of spec. The case length was 1.355, and 1.371 at the same time. The mouth was sine shaped, and very noticeably. Had these not been headstamped AAC, I would have assumed they were made by a guy with a dremel. I can't believe someone fired them. Factory ammo always nosedives in quality around these times,

I will add, its a hard time for manufacturers to keep up. They may have directed resources to bulk ammo, and seeing hunting season on the horizon, put some employees into manual packaging, using what was available. So these may have been hand packaged using foam for a different caliber. its not unheard of in all industries.

Just last week, I had a salesman at Sportsman's Warehouse open a factory sealed box of Remington 270 150 gr Core-Lokts. Over half of the bullet tips were damaged/deformed, and the variations in seating depth was ridiculous. Needless to say, I bought the Federal equivalent, even with some molting on the brass.

Did you buy that ammo from a store or from someone's personal stash? The thousands of factory store bought 5.56 ammo I've purchased if it had primer sealer they all had primer sealer. I've also run across some ammo that looked they had a rough life before they made it into the box. Never had dirt in the ammo holder. As mentioned above I'd whip out my calipers and take a few measurements just to see what's going on, as it could be nothing more than the manufacturers scrounging every corner of their facilities these days to come up with cartridges for making complete boxes to sell.

taliv said:

Is this for real or did I get suckered into buying somebody’s reloads as factory ammo?

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Well, I see they are Winchester...

A few years ago, I acquired a new Rem 700 in 7mm RM. I usually load most everything I shoot, but since this was a new caliber for me, I didn't have dies, etc to load any. So I bought a box of Winchester Power-Point 175 gr loads to shoot at the range first time out.

Shot a two shot "group" to see where the scope was, made an adjustment, then touched off the 3rd shot. My first reaction was that the rifle had blown up - second reaction was that I had just been hit in the side of the face with a brick. It felt like my jaw was broken, but fortunately not.

The first two shots felt perfectly normal, but obviously the third did not. The bolt was stuck and required a hammer to get it open and the case also had to be hammered out of the chamber. The primers on the first two looked normal as well, but as you can imagine, the third was quite flat.

So it isn't news to folks here, but yes, factory ammo sometimes is out of spec.

If Winchester's factory loads are that bad you may as well buy reloads. That's pathetic but I have seen Winchester factory loads with primers inserted upside down, crushed in the pocket sideways and cases with no flash hole or no powder so anything is possible. I am so glad I learned to handload 30 years ago. The factory stuff just seems to get worse and worse. If you load your own you get to inspect every part of the cartridge. I know that I'll never shoot a match with factory loads.

My reloads look way better than that.

I'd be wondering the same as you.

Sad really what Winchester has devolved into these days. Someone else is making their ammo recently I understand. I am sure you could make reloads that were better than that with little problem. Heck a six year old probably could! They probably were factory made unfortunately. Other than rimfire and steel cased Russian plinking fodder I have not purchased factory ammo since the late 70's. Friends have showed up with this type of problem with all the brands but WIN seems the worst as of late. There was even some CCI 9 MM brass cased that had crushed casewalls in half the box once.

taliv said:

But the styrofoam holder has a hole and dirt in it so the rounds sit uneven.

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Lol. I missed that part the first time around. The packaging has dirt in it?

Does the store you purchased it from have a 'no questions asked' return policy?
I picture some guy finding this box cleaning out his trunk one day with a receipt from 1985.

Is it even legal to sell reloads without labeling them as such?

daniel craig said:

Is it even legal to sell reloads without labeling them as such?

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I dont believe it's legal to sell reloads at all, unless you have a license to produce ammo. (FFL of some class...I forget what it is). Not only that, liability. No way would I sell my reloads. I trust them. I'm careful. But no way will I let them out of my sight, for cash, where they will be shot out of who knows what by who knows who.

I'd shoot it.

These days I rarely buy Winchester ammo. Their 22LR's are oversized and don't fit in my M17 S&W Revolver and rarely feed in my 10/22.
Since Walmart dropped all handgun ammo, I don't see any point in buying Winchester's dirty low powered whitebox 45 acp or 9mm.

For high dollar ammo, I like Federal.
HST's for carry guns, Fusion for 223, and Trophy Bonded for my 308.
I just snapped 2 more boxes of Federal Fusion 223 as I recall the last run on guns it was unobtainable.