Winchester 9mm white box quality

[glbedd53]

I have been noticing lately that Winchester FMJs in the white box from Walmart are showing some poor quality control. It seems like they're dirtier than they used to be too. I had already switched over to Federals but the guy behind the counter was showing me a box of Winchester .40s that looked like there were bad crimps and some that primers didn't look the same as others. He told me about other ones that he had seen come through that looked even worse, one with a bulged brass where the bullet was seated. I have been happy with the Federals and he said the Remingtons are good too. Anyone else noticed anything with the Winchesters?

[Thai]

Not sure, but i do know that they dirty up my gun quite a bit after range time. But, damn it, Walmart sure sells them cheap!

In addition, recently, at a walmart near my house, they are now selling Winchester PDX-1 124 gr +P for just under $20 (for box of 20)...not bad price!

[glbedd53]

Yep, I bought a box of those this morning too. The Federal 9mm FMJs were $10.97 for 50. I think that's about the same price as the Winchesters and I like them better.

[McJingles]

I've never had a problem with the winchester, but i found 100 round boxes of federal for 19.97 at walmart so i've been buying those.

[andy123]

I shoot the "whitebox" at the range when i go. I don't mind the occasional FTF because it helps me with drills. The whole "what do you do now". Tap Rack Bang. But for the most part I get maybe one bad the most is two. For the price im ok with it. But as a rule of thumb you get what you pay for right? As for excessive bad quality its I havent noticed anything, but I wont argue with it.

[alvins]

yup ive seen quality issues for awhile now on them. ive had a couple .45 jam up my gun pretty good too.

[Jumping Frog]

The ironic thing is WWB is one of the most accurate rounds out there. I've been reading gun rags for years and I cannot tell you how commonplace it is for Combat Handguns or American Handgunner to post a new gun review where they list the range results showing group sizes where WWB is the most accurate of 5 or 6 kinds of ammo, including premium self-defense ammo.

[Scott in Houston]

I shoot the "whitebox" at the range when i go. I don't mind the occasional FTF because it helps me with drills. The whole "what do you do now". Tap Rack Bang. But for the most part I get maybe one bad the most is two. For the price im ok with it. But as a rule of thumb you get what you pay for right? As for excessive bad quality its I havent noticed anything, but I wont argue with it.

1 per 100?

I've shot several thousand rounds of WWB with zero issues. (9mm)

[glbedd53]

So did I. Until lately. Something must have changed. The guy at Walmart agrees. He claims to shoot a lot.

[catdaddyxx]

I shoot the "whitebox" at the range when i go. I don't mind the occasional FTF because it helps me with drills. The whole "what do you do now". Tap Rack Bang. But for the most part I get maybe one bad the most is two. For the price im ok with it. But as a rule of thumb you get what you pay for right? As for excessive bad quality its I havent noticed anything, but I wont argue with it.

1 per 100?

I've shot several thousand rounds of WWB with zero issues. (9mm)

ditto. I've never had a FTF from them HP or FMJ.

[Mike1951]

There is a difference in the WWB between 50pk and 100pk. I'll have to Google this, but several years ago it was announced that one is made in Serbia and one in the USA.

I'll see if I can locate that and post which is which.

[TDDude]

I was just searching for any White Box comments cause I just witnessed a very bad experience amd it's disturbing that others are having similar issues.

I was testing a group (CHL) and one shooter had a very nice Beretta 92 and was shooting the WB out of a 100 pack.

Every 3rd or 4th shot fired the pistol malfunctioned. The round chambered but didn't quite go into battery and luckily each time this happend it went "click" instead of "BOOM!!". The only way I could tell it was actually out of battery is that the rear of the slide was ever so slightly not all the way forward. One had to look very closely and feel and then it could be determined. Then, when I tried to cycle the slide for the (older woman) shooter, it was ablsolutely stuck in place. I was able to work the slide to clear the jam on a couple stoppages but the last one was simply stuck and I wasn't able to clear it. I stopped her from shooting any more (not that she could anyway) so we could all continue. I had the her get one of the range personnel to help me out cause I didn't want to stop the test. Anyway, Nico (Shiloh manager/owner, Again, thanks a million for your help in this) was able to clear it for me while I continued my test and then pointed out that the round that got stuck had a oddly crimped rim. I looked at other rounds in that box and many were mis-shapen, others had deformed rims, it was generally junk. The cartridges that were causing the jams weren't even straight. The cases had a slight bend or bulge. It was like trying to chamber a bananna bullet or something.


I strongly suggest that everyone stay away from this junk until Winchester gets their act together on this. Perhaps a not so well desinged pistol could have had a catastrophic failure with serious injuries. Online ammo prices these days are too attractive to be putting up with this kind of bad QC.

http://www.USAAmmo.com right now has 9mm for $8.45/50 and even with shipping, is the best deal going.

The other thing I learned that day is that it's a good idea to have an RSO along for the test.

[sharp762]

I strongly suggest that everyone stay away from this junk until Winchester gets their act together on this. Perhaps a not so well desinged pistol could have had a catastrophic failure with serious injuries. Online ammo prices these days are too attractive to be putting up with this kind of bad QC.

Weird stuff. I've had great luck with the stuff, but I'll start paying closer attention. Here lately, I've been going through a couple hundred rounds a week of Wally World bought WWB in 9mm and .40. Out of 1,000+ rounds, I've seen one case stovepipe in my wife's Glock 17. Probably wasn't even the ammo's fault.

[MoJo]

Complaints about WWB ammo are old news. The 9mm seems to be the worst, my first experience with it was in '01 or '02 when I bought my first 9mm (had been a .45 or .357 only guy till then.) The first problems were failure to extract, the rims were just enough out of spec the extractor couldn't get a good bite on the case. There you go a FTE and/or a double feed. Winchester seems to have fixed that problem - - - but, there were the boxes the rounds would go "Bang, pop, then BOOM" inconsistent powder charges no guns were damaged as far as I know but there were many unhappy folks. It was about this time several Law Enforcement agencies stopped using 9mm FMJ WWB for training ammo. One agency I heard of went to Wolf for training ammo.

I will not shoot 9 mm FMJ WWB nor do I want to shoot the WWB 40 and 45 FMJ. The revolver ammo and the JHP ammo all work fine, I think it's actually made by Winchester. The brass on the other hand is primo!

[jiggerachi]

I had a live 9mm round get lodged in the barrel of my CZ. It was from a 100 rd box. Had to gently tap it out with a cleaning rod. Looks like the bullet was seated crooked and peeled the casing back. It came out of the box like this. I have a photo of it somewhere but it looks the same as others in a google search.

Fwiw I still buy WWB because its the cheapest deal around, I just inspect them more carefully before shooting(which is a good idea with any ammo)