QC problems with Winchester brass

[gamestalker]

This is the third batch of Win brass I've had problems with. Fortunately this problem is less critical than the last batch I bought. Anyway, it's 7mm RM, I bought 6 bags, 5 of them were just fine, but the one bag had some super tight necks, and the shoulders were visually very inconsistent, deep radial ripples. I suppose those might just iron out when fired, but the big problem is, they won't chamber in any of my rifles.

The inside diameter of the necks was .275", some were even tighter than that. The necks on most had a really thick internal lip. Not just the typical lip that a chamfer will remove. They have a thick region that extends radially from inside the top of the mouth, and extends at least .050" down the inside of the neck. I first tried to just neck size them to get the necks to usable spec, but due to the shoulders being so badly out of spec, I had to run them through a FL die to bump the high spots on the shoulders enough to fit the chamber I'm working up in. Really disappointing when it concerns new brass.

And based on my observation a couple of weeks ago, I ran into a problem with factory .243 win. ammunition "WW" that was fired from my action, a box of fresh factory ammunition. So I know it was either the load, the brass, or a combination of both. The cases were displaying very obvious incipient head separations. The brass, primer flow, and bolt lift all indicated pressures were through the roof.

So after getting back to the house, I FL sized all of them, trimmed, reamed/chamfer, cleaned the pockets, and then weighed the brass. It was much heavier than any other .243 brass in my inventory, including other once fired WW brass, so I'm thinking thicker brass caused pressures to spike. But since it's all factory ammunition, it's impossible to know if it had anything to do with powder charges or the thick brass. Like I said, this is becoming a rather redundant problem with WW brass for me.

So, would it even be worth while to contact Winchester considering I already FL sized, trimmed, ream/chamfered, all 50 pieces?

GS

 

[FROGO207]

That is one of the main reasons I only use OF brass. If it worked once it should size down and work OK again after it is prepped. Yeah one less fire cycle but cost is less as well. I have also noticed on the brass left on the ground at the local range/pits the WIN brass sometimes seems different as of late. Might have contracted with A-Merc to get brass. I just cull out what I feel is out of spec and recycle that. The downside is it takes a bit longer to go through it the first time. As with everything these days QC is going down the tubes as we "progress" into the future.:banghead:

If you already reamed/turned the necks they will not bother to help you IMHO.

 

[gamestalker]

Thanks Frogo207, that's what I thought once I worked on the necks. Oh well, life's good anyway.

As for OF brass, I try to buy it rather than factory new when ever possible. But lately it's been nearly impossible to find OF 7 mag brass, thus the reason for buying new.

Hey on the up side, at least the new brass gave me an opportunity to head space it to the chamber, thanks to the QC issues, well sort of. Kind of like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with this brass.

GS

 

[KansasSasquatch]

They did open a new ammo plant. I'm not sure what's being produced there but there will surely be some issues as new workers are being trained. As far as I heard they were going to start with rim fire calibers and expand from there.

 

[45lcshooter]

I hate new brass for that reason, so many things wrong with it. Unless i would be getting a 338 Laupa or 50 BMG, then i would buy new brass to start out with. But common calibers, i will let either the factory have the headache of sizing the for someone to shoot and get rid of it as 1x fired, or just find empties at the range.

One thing I've noticed over the years is, Winchester brass is not the greatest. Before i started reloading i bought factory ammo, obviously, for all my guns. But my Win 94 30-30 would split the necks on Winchester factory ammo. Then i got to reloading, and the once fired Winchester cases, some of them still did it. Im sore its because of the pressure hitting the shoulder hard, but compared to the many other casing manufactures, i would split a neck on a Win case 4 times faster than any other case. So as of right now, i have the Winchester cases for my 30-30 so far separated from all other cases.

 

[Swampman]

Winchester brass was my favorite for decades, but the last four or five years the quality seems to have fallen dramatically. I now prefer Prvi Partizan for "bulk" brass.

 

[gamestalker]

45lcshooter, I have to agree with you on that, but once fired 7 mag brass is difficult to find lately. I've been searching, and everything I seeing is mixed head stamp, and I don't like to use mixed for something like 7 mag.. I've experienced some unfavorable, not too mention unpredictable pressure results using mixed head stamps with high powered rifle. So I resorted to buying new, even though I know new brass is terrible until after it's first fire forming load.

GS

 

[JRH6856]

I've been working on 2 bags of new Winchester 6mm Remington brass. 1 case had a flawed mouth with a lump of brass on one side with a sharp splinter (like a torn fingernail). Everything else miked OK except the necks were tight on all of the them. I didn't notice any lip on the inside. Weights were very consistent and the cases passed the roll test for symmetry.