Winchester White Box

[Ausman]

I hardly ever shoot factory ammo as I love the reloading process and my wife I definitely enjoy the results. This past weekend tho'.. we ran out of time and had to buy a couple of boxes of Winchester white box in 9mm. All went pretty well for the most part.. except for several rounds that jammed in the magazine. One especially was quite interesting... OAL of 1.212" and several others that were way too long. I don't know I got it into the magazine in the first place! Suffice to say that the 115gr. bullet was barely seated. Not a good situation in my opinion.. especially since someone uninitiated might have a severe problem with major set-back on some of the longish loads.. as I don't think the extreme long one would have ever made it to the chamber!

The other strange part of the WWB loads... a chunk of them were NATO. Go figger.. I guess Winchester is so far behind in keeping up with demand that it is ok just to cram anything into the box. Guess I am glad that 99.5% of everything that I shoot comes out of my reloading setup!

[21 shooter]

I hardly ever shoot factory ammo as I love the reloading process and my wife I definitely enjoy the results. This past weekend tho'.. we ran out of time and had to buy a couple of boxes of Winchester white box in 9mm. All went pretty well for the most part.. except for several rounds that jammed in the magazine. One especially was quite interesting... OAL of 1.212" and several others that were way too long. I don't know I got it into the magazine in the first place! Suffice to say that the 115gr. bullet was barely seated. Not a good situation in my opinion.. especially since someone uninitiated might have a severe problem with major set-back on some of the longish loads.. as I don't think the extreme long one would have ever made it to the chamber!

The other strange part of the WWB loads... a chunk of them were NATO. Go figger.. I guess Winchester is so far behind in keeping up with demand that it is ok just to cram anything into the box. Guess I am glad that 99.5% of everything that I shoot comes out of my reloading setup!

I try not to use WW ammo if I can. A couple or so years ago I had a dud round of WWB in 9mm. Cause? No flash hole. QC is definitely out the window nowadays. I don't know if that applies to all of the companies,but I suspect you are right.

Edited May 10, 2012 by 21 shooter

[blind bat]

WWB is one of those, "You pay for what you get" type things. Take the interweb rumors with a grain of salt, but I've heard it said that what ends up in the WWB boxes are "seconds" that didn't make the cut for their top tier lines but are still safe. That makes sense to me being that I have also experienced the mixed head stamps in recent boxes of WWB. However, I've also seen bullets not seated properly and even a .40 bullet shoehorned into a 9mm case which clearly should have been discarded at the factory.

Edited to say: Even factory ammo needs to be case gauged before being used in a match. Especially cheap ammo.

Edited May 10, 2012 by blind bat

[DoubleL]

Last month my buddy bought 500 rds of WWB. 6 rounds of the 500 had a folded rim, the first two jammed the glock something fierce. Had to pogo stick it to unjam the round. He started inspecting after the second one and culled the remaining 4.

YGWYPF. I guess. The 500 of federal 115 FMJ I bought had zero folded cases. A buck less per box at Wallyworld.

The WWB he had was filthy shootin stuff too. We cleared the second stuck round and inspected, about 200 through it. Eek what a mess.

I don't have much experience but so far I've not been to impressed with Winchester ammo. I found some at basspro, some target stuff, lead bullets. I had no idea how messy ammo truly could be. I'm sure their premium is fine. But I'm too cheap to find out!

[HoMiE]

I was RO'ing a shooter once when similar thing happend with Remington UMC ammo. Sounded like a squib but bullet was still in case, looked at primer pocket and primer was gone with no flash hole. You have to think about how many rounds they load so 1 out of a million is acceptable QC to a big manufacture. you just hate to be that one that gets the dud.

[MrVvrroomm]

Winchester White Box is crap ammo. I would never recommend it to anyone. Their quality control, or lack thereof, is inexcusable.

[retarmyaviator]

Guess I have just been lucky. Several friends and I shoot WWB in subguns often and in several years have not had a problem with it.

[theblacknight]

Wow. I shoot nothing but this ammo, and have for @9k r thru my M&P. I think i remember maybe 3 FTF. I've shot some random boxes of UMC and PMC gold thru it when Dicks has a sale. No problems with any of them. I wont be shooting it when I get home as I made a bulk order of some other 147g range ammo.

[mgood]

Winchester White Box is crap ammo. I would never recommend it to anyone. Their quality control, or lack thereof, is inexcusable.

True.

Some guns will run it just fine and some won't hardly run it at all. I think that's where some of the debate comes in; those who have not had problems simply do not believe the stories from those who have had issues with it.

(I'm sure some lots are worse than others too.)

I've been lucky. My guns run it fine, other than being a little dirtier than other ammo.

Not my first choice in ammo but it's nice to know it will work.