Looking at buying some bulk Winchester Brass for a prairie dog hunt but the reviews of the recent production brass are very poor what has been your experience recently? Can't afford to go with laupa but really can't afford to throw 10%+ away either?Have you experienced poor quality Winchester brass in the last year?YesYes but within exceptable margins of mass productionNo

winchester brass has been pretty consistent --
i have loaded about 600 rounds in the last 3 months

Even if you have to toss 10% (which i doubt), you'll still come away cheaper than Lapua. I use a lot of Lapua brass but not for Pdog shoots.
I understand that if you call Winchester and complain, they'll send you some more.

Have reloaded a lot of winchester with no problems.Have had some issues with remington brass right out of the bag.

When someone sez "I have issues" without explaining what the "issues" are, it's a pretty meaningless statement. FWIW, I've been reloading Rem brass for about 50 years without any "issues". I guess I've been lucky.

I've had no trouble at all with Win brass and I buy a variety of cartridges.

The only bad Win brass I have experienced was a few years or so ago. I bought some 264Win brass and some of them had cracks in the shoulder area right out of the bag and a small percentage cracked in this area upon the first firing. But in all honesty, I have used a lot of Win brass and will continue to use it. I have a bunch of Win 22/250 brass that has been loaded and fired several times and have never had one fail yet, and have to trim them with every loading (which I believe is the norm with this cartridge).

These reviews from a large mail order supplier is what prompted me to start the thread. Wanted to see how extensive the issue is or if a bad batch got out of the factory to one supplier:

Lot of bad primer pocktes, deformed shoulders, out of spec rims.

http://www.midwayusa.com/produ...brass-243-winchester

I bought a couple of bags of .270 brass from Sportsman's Warehouse in December & only one case had a minor case mouth ding.
It's all now been once fired & resized without issue.

I bought 1k rounds of .204R late last year and it is fine.

Good grief.
What kind of quality problems?
Case mouth dents?
Not shiny enough?


Geez,
I have a boat load of Win, Rem and Federal.
The only crappy brass I ever got was a lot of Norma about 1973. The case mouth was thick on one side and thin on the other.

New equipment & new employes can be a problem when it comes to quality control. If your loosing your job in Illinois, would you care? Remember, these soon to be unemployed workers are loading the powder in the ammo.



11/8/2010 Win.
Winchester's ammunition factory is relocating from Illinois to Mississippi. Olin said approximately 1,000 jobs will be relocated to a new 500,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art plant to be built in Oxford, Miss. The move is expected to take several years.The company recorded just $4.1 million in costs stemming from re-fitting a Tennessee plant and moving its Winchester ammunition plant factory from Alton to Mississippi,

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/busine...8.html#ixzz1n1fgS5Vi

I worked for Dupont-Remington and Olin-Winchester both at Lake City. Remington was better to work for. First thing Olin did was start taking away benefits and cutting wages when they got the contract. They could probably save a penny a round if they moved the plant to Mississippi.

SR4759,

Read the reviews on the link I posted,..I haven't had any issues with winchester but I haven't bought any in over a year,...it seems a little odd to get 10-12 bad reviews in 6-7 month period, I was looking for a broader scope to see if this is an isolated case, consumers being over critical or a more pronounced problem?

From the replies here is seems to either be an isolated issue with one supplier or a bad batch that got out.

What is your take on it?

quote:

Have reloaded a lot of winchester with no problems.Have had some issues with remington brass right out of the bag.

Me too. And to avoid being tagged for making a meaningless statement let me say that my issues with the Remington brass were that it was very, very brittle. Like on the first firing pieces of the neck went out the barrel brittle.

LWD

I have had issues with folded brass in the shoulder on 25 WSSM brass; seems like 1-2 in every bag of 50. Certainly not 10% but very annoying nonetheless.

quote:

Originally posted by LWD:

quote:

Have reloaded a lot of winchester with no problems.Have had some issues with remington brass right out of the bag.

Me too. And to avoid being tagged for making a meaningless statement let me say that my issues with the Remington brass were that it was very, very brittle. Like on the first firing pieces of the neck went out the barrel brittle.

LWD

What did Remington have to say when you called them??

quote:

Originally posted by Big Bird:
SR4759,

Read the reviews on the link I posted,..I haven't had any issues with winchester but I haven't bought any in over a year,...it seems a little odd to get 10-12 bad reviews in 6-7 month period, I was looking for a broader scope to see if this is an isolated case, consumers being over critical or a more pronounced problem?

From the replies here is seems to either be an isolated issue with one supplier or a bad batch that got out.

What is your take on it?

I think the big companies have about a 1% defect rate when selling brass to the public.
I think few people will get on the phone over one bad case. This defect rate does tick me off when I buy new brass. When I buy once fired brass I am able to examine all cases before I buy so the bad ones never see my bench

However I have NEVER bought a lot of new brass where a lage percentage was defective except the Norma brass that I mentioned.
I hear people complain about brass from time to time but I have to take their comments with a grain of salt if the comments are not specific.
Most of the complaints I have heard are about dinged case mouths.
Bad brass is a public nuisance so report it to the manufacturer when you get it.

Now for the smart ass humor.
I buy only proof tested brass when I can get it.
Yes all my brass has been proofed and any soft or otherwise defective cases are easy to spot and throw away. I am happy when I find large lots of once fired center fire rifle brass.
Once I go through the sorting process I know I am getting cases with no defects including the unseen metallurgical types.

If I got a batch of brass that was blowing hunks of the case out the end of the barrel, I guarentee you someone is gonna hear about it. And I don't mean coming into cyberspace and whining about having "issues".
Notice I said "batch". Considering how reasonable our components are and that they are mostly made by machines, I'm not bothered by one or two units that aren't up to snuff.