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Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 10:16 am
by texanron
Went through a box of 9mm WWB yesterday at the range with no problems.
Of course that was through a Glock so the superior technology of the firearm may have had something to do with it!

Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 10:24 am
by fulano
Snap E Tom wrote:I talked to one of the guys at McBride's on Monday about this. He thinks the brass might be too long on them. I haven't measured, though. He did tell me to specifically look for "Made in the USA" on the box, and sure enough, they were there.
One of the guys on the other forums pointed out that Winchester is in the middle of moving their production from a plant in Illinois to Mississippi. They might be having QC issues because of this.
I only have three boxes of White Win "in stock". All are USA. I've not paid attention to country of origin before; the letters are quite large. USA, USA, USA...

Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 10:47 am
by MoJo
fulano wrote:Snap E Tom wrote:I talked to one of the guys at McBride's on Monday about this. He thinks the brass might be too long on them. I haven't measured, though. He did tell me to specifically look for "Made in the USA" on the box, and sure enough, they were there.
One of the guys on the other forums pointed out that Winchester is in the middle of moving their production from a plant in Illinois to Mississippi. They might be having QC issues because of this.
I only have three boxes of White Win "in stock". All are USA. I've not paid attention to country of origin before; the letters are quite large. USA, USA, USA...

Er - uh - umm - - - The brand name is "Winchester USA" not "Winchester White Box" they all have USA on 'em. Look on the back of the box to see where it was made (small print)
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 11:04 am
by WildBill
Snap E Tom wrote:One of the guys on the other forums pointed out that Winchester is in the middle of moving their production from a plant in Illinois to Mississippi. They might be having QC issues because of this.
This is a good possibility. Many production problems have to be straightened out when closing down one facility and opening up a new factory.
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 1:15 pm
by fulano
MoJo wrote:fulano wrote:
I only have three boxes of White Win "in stock". All are USA. I've not paid attention to country of origin before; the letters are quite large. USA, USA, USA...

Er - uh - umm - - - The brand name is "Winchester USA" not "Winchester White Box" they all have USA on 'em. Look on the back of the box to see where it was made (small print)
Thanks for pointing that out. I've fallen into the habit of calling it white box. It is in a white box but it is not "white box".
When I google White box Winchester, I get many references to the Winchester USA. Sort of like "clips" vs magazines. Clips is wrong but commonly used.
BTW the "made in USA" is just above the USA circled logo that is below the word Winchester on all the box faces. Ironically the details/warning are in english and french...weird.
Is Winchester USA made anywhere other than the USA?
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Fri May 06, 2011 1:21 pm
by mgood
fulano wrote:Is Winchester USA made anywhere other than the USA?
I believe it is or has been.
Most of it seems to be made in USA. We get lulled into thinking all of it is. You read "Made in USA" on a few boxes and always buy similar looking boxes but stop reading what it says.
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Mon May 09, 2011 4:53 pm
by Snap E Tom
A gentleman from Winchester called me back at around lunch. He said he hadn't heard about this before, but he'd like to see the rounds. I'm shipping the rest of the boxes to him, and they're reimbursing me the two boxes.
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 12:18 pm
by schufflerbot
took my walther PK380 out for the first time on sunday... had a 100rd white box of winchester to put through it... 5 FTFs.
yes... 5.
i was pretty upset, thinking initially that it was the brand new weapon causing the problems.
however, i also had a 50rd pack of federal range ammo and that box yielded 100% bang.
last time ill be buying winchester, that's for sure.
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 8:14 am
by Snap E Tom
Good Lord, check out these pics:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=588520" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 9:04 am
by mgood
schufflerbot wrote:last time ill be buying winchester, that's for sure.
Winchester manufactures several lines of ammunition. The USA or "White Box" stuff is the cheapest. It's primarily sold in Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is known to do a lot of arm-twisting in order to purchase things at the prices they do, forcing many manufacturers of many different products to cut quality in order to meet Wal-Mart's demands for low cost.
I've heard lots of stories of that White Box ammo containing powder that was spilled on the floor and swept up and loaded into cartridges. Stuff that's rejected from other Winchester lines ends up in white boxes. Those are rumors, but I've heard them from people I trust who claim to have actually pulled the bullets out of some of these cartridges and found all kinds of trash in there that didn't belong in the gunpowder.
I think the Remington ammo sold at WallyWorld at prices similar to the WWB ammo is probably similar in quality. I've heard fewer horror stories about the Remington stuff, but Wal-Mart sells less of it.
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 11:27 am
by fulano
Yikes!!
I posted earlier in this thread that I had a round that failed to seat in the chamber. It took some tugging to get it out; fortunately the ejector held on.
I re-box my WBW into a plastic Dillon ammo box but failed to do a thorough inspection. After that experience, I've begun to slow down when reboxing and look at each round.
The next to the last photo in the link above looked exactly like my bad round.
I've bought all the WBW I intend to. I bought it to get the 9mm brass to reload. My goal was to accumulate 1000 pieces. My thinking was that it was the most economical way to get a thousand rounds of brass but I think I won't do that again; I'll just buy some range brass.
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 12:35 pm
by mgood
fulano wrote:I've bought all the WBW I intend to. I bought it to get the 9mm brass to reload. My goal was to accumulate 1000 pieces. My thinking was that it was the most economical way to get a thousand rounds of brass but I think I won't do that again; I'll just buy some range brass.
It is (if it's not chewed up like some in those pics) good brass.
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 7:29 pm
by punkndisorderly
I used to shoot white box almost exclusively in my pistols (9mm, 357 magnum, and 45acp). Lately I've been buying bulk ammo of other brands online. Only switched because white box has been hard to find lately.
I've never had a problem with any of the white box out of a few thousand rounds. I take that back, I had one round a couple of years ago that had a primer that was inserted badly. I tossed it.
The only ammo I've had an issue with was blazer aluminum which my glock 20 doesn't seem to like.
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:34 pm
by jimandyen
Haven't had any problems here. I've shot over 400 rounds of Wally World Winchester 115gr. 9mm
through my Beretta 92FS Compact recently without a hiccup...
Re: Anyone having problems with Winchester ammo recently?
Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:57 pm
by hirundo82
I've been shooting mostly the Academy house brand recently (which is made by Prvi Partisan), but I've had problems with Winchester QC in the past. I have a 9mm round that somehow only got half the jacket put on the bullet (the rear half is naked lead), and one of the rounds had an FMJ bullet when I ordered some Ranger T to use as SD rounds when I was having trouble finding Federal HST a couple years back. WWB has always been dirty IME.
Regardless, if the rounds fed and fired fine it sounds like more of a mag issue than an ammo issue. Odd it didn't happen with the other brands though.