Winchester White Box

[Dennis1209]

Big problems at my last 'three' USPSA matches. I've got casings stuck so tightly in the barrel chamber they will not eject. I've had to hold the slide as hard as I can and punch the grip many times to eject the casing. Needless to say how my match results turned out. 

I use a number of brands of ammo and all new, never reloaded [best deals you know], I just dump a few hundred into my little ammo can to make sure I have more than enough for the day and go. Long story short and I'm going to get to the bottom of this issue. I dumped out the 200 rounds or so when I got home and inspected each of them. Of the 200, four of them the projectile was way too far pressed into the casing. I assume that would cause a casing expansion issue? Upon further inspection, it was all Winchester White Box. I don't know if this is normal quality control or just a bad batch I picked up? Anyone else had issues with WWB?

You're zipping along doing pretty well and having fun when this time consuming jam occurs and wrecks your entire match and day. Disappointing. I suppose the best solution is to individually inspect each round for deformities before use... Who pays attention to the ammo when you're rushing to reload magazines for the next stage?

Being a R.O. at 67 years old, having to pay the same match fees, not having the time to re-hydrate or sit down to relax a minute or two, having to rush my reloading, and these consistent severe jams are starting to wear me down and it's becoming work and not pleasure. Looks like with age I'm becoming a whiner.

[tnhawk]

I haven't had a problem with WWB, but all of mine is several years old.  Much of it was bought at Walmart before they stopped selling ammo.  Most of mine has been 45 acp.

[DaveTN]

WWB is my round of choice for cheap range ammo. Of the thousands of rounds I’ve fired I’ve never had a failure that was ammo related; they were all gun related. I did have one round out a box that was smashed and bent.

Could the bullet set-back be from loading and unloading? If not, send them off with a letter explaining what happened and they might send you some ammo. It’s certainly possible they had some bad rounds that quality didn’t catch.

[deerslayer]

WWB is usually pretty reliable stuff.  What kind of gun are you shooting?  Is it only an extraction issue or are any of these rounds also failing to chamber or go fully into battery?  Do you ever gage your ammo the night before?  This is pretty much standard practice for reloaders, but I know several competitive shooters who strictly use factory ammo and gage everything before they use it.  Factory stuff can be faulty, too.  It may have been a simple bad batch, but running the rest of that ammo through gage could be telling.  

Edited June 16, 2020 by deerslayer

[AuEagle]

Shot thousands of rounds of WWB Ammo & seen 10's of thousands rounds shot with no problems.

 

[1gewehr]

In an earlier era, right after Obama was sworn in, I bought some WWB 9mm.  Several rounds in the box had primers that were not seated properly, one had actually fallen out and spilled powder in the box.  I contacted Olin and let them know the lot number.  They replaced the box.

I suspect that when they were running production full-blast, they may have had new folks or less attention to quality.  Right now, they are again behind demand.  So, it could be the same issue.

I'm pretty well stocked with 9mm right now, so I have not bought any in the past 6 months.  But I have fired many thousands of rounds of 9mm WWB and that one time is the only time I had any issues.

[Handsome Rob]

" I just dump a few hundred into my little ammo can to make sure I have more than enough for the day and go."

I would say that's your problem, right there. If they're just falling willy-nilly into a box, any that land bullet down are going to possibly suffer setback. Also, because of their deep seating, I think what you're likely experiencing is some pretty severe over-pressure. Im genuinely scared of shooting a pistol round that is set back at all & usually just toss it out.

If you consider that a half grain extra of powder can grenade a glock, think how much pressure is created by reducing the cartridge capacity by a 'naked eye' amount! 

[Dennis1209]

3 hours ago, Handsome Rob said:

" I just dump a few hundred into my little ammo can to make sure I have more than enough for the day and go."

I would say that's your problem, right there. If they're just falling willy-nilly into a box, any that land bullet down are going to possibly suffer setback. Also, because of their deep seating, I think what you're likely experiencing is some pretty severe over-pressure. Im genuinely scared of shooting a pistol round that is set back at all & usually just toss it out.

If you consider that a half grain extra of powder can grenade a glock, think how much pressure is created by reducing the cartridge capacity by a 'naked eye' amount! 

Nah, I gently pour them into the ammo can. The more I think about it and some of the comments above; I think I bought that WWB sometime around the Obama scares and shortages? I think I'll chock it up to shortages, maximum production with less quality control to meet demands. 

Yeah, it could be over-pressure but, you would think if it was too much powder we would hear and notice it? Shooting my competition Canik TP9SFX, everything feeds and ejects just fine except about every roughly 50th round, when the casing gets stuck in the chamber and you can't manually pull the slide back to eject it. The casings are getting deformed after they are fired. 

[Sunfish]

I will tell you WWB is better than having no ammo at all but not the most consistent or most reliable stuff out there.  Good luck with anything made over here. Stuff is slam bam thank you mam and out the door.   

[leroy]

Dennis...

Sorry ta hear about your bad luck...  I would be inclined to run my competition ammo thru an ammo gage to check OAL... Inspect any " short " rounds n set em aside...

RE... " brass stickin in chamber "... A couple of observations... We used ta see this with hot loads back in the revolver days... We fixed it by cleanin the cylinder bore or chamber, in your case, thoroughly and degreasing it with methanol... The brass expandin with the hot loads will sometimes make the brass grab the chamber n do what ya are seein, as will a bit of dirt or powder residue.   

The clean chamber thing will allow the hot loads to eject, I'm thinkin... It ain't unusual for these hot loads not to make much more noise than the standard loads, so ya ain't gonna hear em, I'm thinkin...

Good luck n be careful.

leroy

Edited June 17, 2020 by leroy

[Garufa]

Haven’t shot much WWB lately, but it’s not the worst ammo and it’s certainly not the best.  Saw a guy at the range a couple of years ago shooting a pack of the stuff at the range...one sideways primer, one round that wouldn’t load, and another that barely got out of the barrel.  That was out of one of the 100 or 150 round packs.

[et45]

I shot quite a bit of WWB 9mm years ago.The only issues I had with it was 2 light strikes and a FTF at the 05 Tn Section USPSA match.Bad batch?,who knows.I switched back to 45 ACP soon after and haven’t shot any WWB since. I now reload 9mm.

[pop pop]

I use WWB, 9MM 38Spl, and have for the last 30 years, never had any problems with any of it. Sorry for your bad luck.

I will say I haven't purchased any Winchester ammo for the past 4 years and have an adequate old stash on hand. Last I purchased was Federal practice ammo.  

[swiley383]

 Any say I have had problems from winchester but I have from remington a few years back lots of failures to fire. I have a co worker that had a box of remington 38 all and 357 that most would not fire also. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Smith55]

I have used WWB and have had no problems. I guess I am lucky.