bad experience with Winchester ammo

[lopezni]

I was at the range today testing my handloads. I ran out and wanted to use up some factory Winchester 6.5x55. The case necks on 5 different cartridges split vertically from where the neck meets the shoulder running .125" up the neck. Any one ever had this happen? No problems with my handloads and I am using bulk Winchester brass.

 

[Onmilo]

The Winchester Metric calibers are actually loaded by Sellier and Bellot.

While I have had no experience with 6.5X55 ammo, I have had the same experience with Winchester 7.62X54 Russian.

This is likely caused by poor annealing or no annealing of the case heads by S&B during manufacture.

While this neck splitting will not harm your firearm it can be extremely annoying if you were planning to reload the cartridge cases as I was.

Send the cartridges back to Winchester and they will send you a coupon for a new box of shells which doesn't fix the issue BUT, if enough people complain they may take steps to fix the problem.

With Winchester though, the fix usually ends up being them dropping the product line,,,

I suggest you obtain some Privi-Partisan 6.5X55
Made in Serbia, the ammunition is quite good, fairly affordable, and the cases have demonstrated a long reloading life, at least in the 7.62 Russian stuff I have been using.

Privi-Partisan in many calibers is available from AIM Surplus.HTH

 

[lopezni]

thanks, I've heard of what you said. It is strange though, I never had that problem with actual Sellier and Bellot ammo. I wonder if they do it to Winchester on purpose. I have used PP, not happy with my 7.5x55 brass, not very happy with my bulk Winchester brass either. Wish I could say I'm gonna stick with Remington, but their brass and primers can be hard to find at times.

 

[Robert]

I have used Winchester brass for a few years now on my 308 hand loads and have had no issues what so ever. I had to do a little case prep at first but after that I have had to do minor if any case work. I'd use Winchester any day over anything Remington makes. But as they say YMMV.

 

[Onmilo]

.308 Winchester is made in Alton Illinois.
The stuff we are talking about is made in Czechoslovakia.

I didn't want to say that S&B may do the brass specifically for Winchester but since you brought it up,,,,I haven't had any major issues with S&B boxed ammo either.

Their .32 acp brass is my favorite for reloading.

 

[PCCUSNRET]

I recently had some Winchester 22-250 which split at the neck. I posted about it in the reloading section.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=536099

Is 22-250 also made overseas? I shot a box of 22-250 Privi Partizan through the same gun and no neck splitting.

 

[lopezni]

I just think Winchester makes crappy brass. I use new Winchester brass for my 6.5x55 and the lengths of the cases were quite varied, in 9 of 50 pieces of brass the primer flash hole still was filled with brass. On the contrary, I recently resized 50 pieces of Remington brass. only 5 of those cases had to be trimmed and they grew no more than .002".

 

[Robert]

in 9 of 50 pieces of brass the primer flash hole still was filled with brass

Wow that is an issue. Not good at all.

lengths of the cases were quite varied

I guess that is "normal" for Winchester. I always trim and uniform the primer pockets first anyway.
The issue i have with Remington is the vast differences they can have in case wall thickness from case to case. I have been expressly warned from using Remington cases on my hot 45-70 loads because they are not uniform in thickness and tend to cause pressure spikes. Now this came from a reloader and shoot I trust a great deal. But I have not seen this first hand.

 

[375shooter]

I have experienced this neck-splitting, with a .17 Rem and Remington factory ammo. Also with handloads in .416 Rigby with Norma brass. The .416 brass is expensive, so I annealed the necks to solve the problem.

 

[Al LaVodka]

I stopped buying Win. rifle ammo before they went out of business. I remember one trip to the range when I forgot and was test a few different commercial loads in a brand-new-to-me Browning Hi-Wall in 22-250. I was getting almost 6" groups at 100 yards with two different ammos and was about to break the gun to bits but started packing up instead. Then I realized they'd both been Winchester ammos of some kind. I tried the Rem. and Federal -- 1" groups.

Cases? Win. bullets were crap. I expect they still are too.

Al

 

[courtgreene]

I'm a huge Winchester ammo fan. Maybe the fact that I don't reload plays into it, but i've gotten more consistency from winchester than I have remington OR federal. Sorry to hear about your bad experiences but I could tell you plenty of bad experiences about remington ammo. I guess everyone gets crappy loads every now and then.

I also like S&B btw.

 

[Ol` Joe]

I stopped buying Win. rifle ammo before they went out of business.

Winchester rifles and ammo are two totally different companies. The rifles are built under the Winchester name by FN and the ammo is owned by Olin.
That said I`ve had problems with both Win and Remington brand brass in the past and don`t feel either has much in the way of QC anymore. The last batch of Winchester 270 bulk brass I bought had 1/2 dozen virgin cases with folds in the neck area and a couple with cracked necks.