Poor quality Winchester brass.

[6mm Remington]

I've had a couple bags of 6mm Remington Winchester brass (50 rounds each) sitting on the shelf in my reloading room that I've had for maybe 4 years and just got around to prepping them to be loaded. In doing this prep work I found that out of 100 rounds of brass that I was truing up that 32 of them were defective to the point that I could not safely use them. It appeared that not enough brass was used in the cases and there were gaps and lines in the neck/shoulder area. You could actually see through some of the gaps. I was pretty unhappy to say the least. Brass is not cheap!

I contacted Winchester and told them of the situation and I included pictures of the brass. The woman I spoke with was very helpful and informed me to send the brass in and once they had it they would have it replaced and shipped back to me. I guess that's another part of the equation. I felt like man they were right on this and would help me out but it apparently hasn't worked out that way as I still haven't seen the replacement brass after a few weeks. I think I expected better results than this.

 

[Sheltowee]

I've had a couple bags of 6mm Remington Winchester brass (50 rounds each) sitting on the shelf in my reloading room that I've had for maybe 4 years and just got around to prepping them to be loaded. In doing this prep work I found that out of 100 rounds of brass that I was truing up that 32 of them were defective to the point that I could not safely use them. It appeared that not enough brass was used in the cases and there were gaps and lines in the neck/shoulder area. You could actually see through some of the gaps. I was pretty unhappy to say the least. Brass is not cheap!

I contacted Winchester and told them of the situation and I included pictures of the brass. The woman I spoke with was very helpful and informed me to send the brass in and once they had it they would have it replaced and shipped back to me. I guess that's another part of the equation. I felt like man they were right on this and would help me out but it apparently hasn't worked out that way as I still haven't seen the replacement brass after a few weeks. I think I expected better results than this.

I had nearly the same experience with some Winchester .223 or 5.56 brass. Was very disappointed.

 

[Jbotto]

I seem to remember this was pretty common with Winchester rifle brass for a couple years back then. Hope they make it right.

 

[Polaris_Doc]

Had some nasty neck and shoulder splits on some 300 wsm brass a few years back. Think I'll stick to some better quality stuff.

 

[p_ham]

I've had a couple bags of 6mm Remington Winchester brass (50 rounds each) sitting on the shelf in my reloading room that I've had for maybe 4 years and just got around to prepping them to be loaded. In doing this prep work I found that out of 100 rounds of brass that I was truing up that 32 of them were defective to the point that I could not safely use them. It appeared that not enough brass was used in the cases and there were gaps and lines in the neck/shoulder area. You could actually see through some of the gaps. I was pretty unhappy to say the least. Brass is not cheap!

I contacted Winchester and told them of the situation and I included pictures of the brass. The woman I spoke with was very helpful and informed me to send the brass in and once they had it they would have it replaced and shipped back to me. I guess that's another part of the equation. I felt like man they were right on this and would help me out but it apparently hasn't worked out that way as I still haven't seen the replacement brass after a few weeks. I think I expected better results than this.

You're probably waiting for them to do a run of that brass. They're not going to re tool for 100 pieces.

 

[Polaris_Doc]

Yep, got tired of waiting and reading about similar issues. So luckily got 100 pieces of ADG from creedmoor sports a few months back before it sold out in 2 min!

 

[MT_Chad]

I'm currently using Privi Partisan, or PPU, in my 6mm Ackley. I ordered a bunch of it from Grafs but it looks like they are out now. It is definitely better than the Winchester brass I've used in the past. Might be worth a try.

 

[ImBillT]

I have about 200pcs of once fired Winchester 6mm Rem and a couple hundred 7x57. Once fired probably sorts out the unusable cases as I haven’t seen any. Even so, Winchester brass is terribly non-uniform, even after doing quite a bit of work on it.

The best bet is to spend the money for Lapua, Norma, or RWS 7x57 or 8x57. There is work involved in going that route too. After necking down, you’ll need to anneal the necks, and you’ll most likely have yo turn them to have safe neck clearance as well. In the end you’ll have vastly superior brass, and a neck clearance similar to that achieved with a custom reamer. That’s both an equipment and time investment in addition to the cost of the brass. If you can get 7x57 you might have enough neck clearance to avoid turning it.