Winchester Primer Pockets

[Paul B]

I've loaded many thousands of .40's on my 650, but I seem to have a continuing problem with only Winchester brass.

Since my gun will digest about anything I'm not picky about the headstamp on the case so I shoot anything I can pick up and I buy the mixed headstamp brass from Brassman. They all load well except some (not all) of the Winchester. I continually get the primer going in just enough off center to catch on one side and leave half the primer mangled and sticking out. The funny thing is I use nothing but Winchester primers and this only happens with Winchester cases.

Does anyone know if Winchester made a lot of military crimp cases? Do they have tighter primer pockets or a lack of taper to the primer pocket? Has anyone else had this problem?

[EricW]

What does the headstamp say on the brass? Look closely at the edges of the pocket near the head of the case. If they are not rounded to smoothly lead in the primer, you are likely looking at military brass. If so, there's not much to do short of sorting it out, or buying a 1050.

[ErikW]

I get high primers with Winchester .40S&W brass. So does another local shooter. It might happen more often with WSR rifle primers than WSP pistol primers.

There's no crimp. It could just be that some pockets are tighter than others or shallower than others.

[Chriss Grube]

I had the same problem with brass from last years quals. Ended up pitching most of it. Their 9mm is fine the .40 is a PITA. The pocket is real tight and if you aren't lined up perfectly it won't seat. Give it to someone with a 1050 or a shooter you don't like! It isn't worth the hassle

[Flexmoney]

I use nothing but Winchester brass and Federal primers for my Major 40 loads. I don't recall any problems (Dillon 650).

[kimel]

I have loaded over 3K different Winchester .40 cases several times each, some purchased new, some once fired, some range brass of unknown heritage.

I have had maybe a dozen high primers and all of those were operator error (as in, I knew it when I did it). Dillon SDB, CCI primers. And no, I have never had a CCI mess up my primer mechanism either.

S&B brass, now that is a whole other ball game. That junk goes right into the "Brass for Recycling" bucket.

[GunDoc]

Paul,

What your dealing with is brass that came from a box of Winchester “Win-Clean” ammo. When Winchester decided to make a reduced lead round they used a lead free primer. However, the new primer was not as hot as a traditional lead styfanate one and it wouldn’t ignite the powder in certain circumstances. (Like cold weather). To compensate for this they went with a larger diameter flash hole. This solution created a new problem, the larger flash hole would allow more gas pressure back to the primer, sometimes causing it to back out of the casing, locking up the firearm. (like when it’s fired out of a revolver). To solve this problem, Winchester engineers crimped the primer in place, like in their military ammo. Unfortunately, Winchester did not change the head stamp on this ammo so it’s impossible to tell without really looking at the flash hole.

Most of the brass that I buy comes from indoor ranges, and of that, I’ve been getting around 2% of this brass. It has forced me into some new culling procedures. First I look at all the head stamps and throw out the junk. (S&B, A-merc, etc). Then I set a decapping die in the press so it hits the shell plate as low in the travel as possible. This causes me to use more force on the arm of the press to deprime and I can feel if any of the casings need more force than usual to deprime. These I can cull as needed. I’ve also developed a rather soft hand at seating the new primers, to hopefully catch any that I’ve missed.

Hope this helps.

Doc.

[Carl]

I've had a similar experience with new Winchester 38 super brass (not Winclean), using CCI 400 (sr) primers. I'm using a 650 , and at first thought it was just me. I used a Sinclar small pistol primer pocket uniformer on all the brass, problem solved. Problem is, that it really took some time to do it!

What looked like was happening, is that the primer pocket bottom was not square, but, sort of "rounded". Again, the primer pocket uniformer squared it properly.

Carl

[Paul B]

Thanks for the info from everyone. I thought just the Federal brass with the "NT" headstamp and lead free primers had this problem. Now it seems Winchester did some of this stuff also. I guess you live and learn. Gee I hate to sort brass!