Winchester brass

[Marlin Junky]

Does anyone know where the Winchester brand of brass is/was made? I need some new 30WCF brass and hope to get the same quality I'm used to in my next purchase. I'm concerned that the 30-30 brass may have been made in the now closed plant in CT. I haven't purchased new 30WCF brass in the Winchester brand for about 5 to 6 years. Am I better off necking down a couple hundred virgin .32Spl cases? Neck wall uniformity is especially important to me since I load tight fitting cast bullets and usually outside neck trim very slightly without taking off brass all the way around.

Thanks,
MJ

[Hip's Ax]

Brass and ammo are made by Olin, nothing to do with the place that closed.

[Marlin Junky]

So are you saying Winchester brass is made in East Alton, Illinois or Clayton, MO? I suppose it could even be made in Australia??

MJ

[felix]

Alton, at least is was some time ago. Brass operations, like rolling, making plugs, wire, etc., still might be done there. Cartridge brass? Maybe, maybe not anymore. They had one fantastic case and bullet line back in the 60's. Bullets by the 55 gallon drum coming off the lines. Expert gas jet rotation type of case annealing too. ... felix

[StarMetal]

Felix,

In that article I posted about on the Wolf ammunition they mentioned in it that they don't form their cases by the cup method as does or did american companies. They were vague on exactly how do it, but clear that they certainly didn't machine them out of a chunk of brass. They use a forging process, but that's all I could get from it. You have any ideas?

Joe

[felix]

No idea, Joe. A molding process, maybe? If so, how would they open the mold? Nah, it has to be some sort of punch/die method, and then probably hammer forged like a barrel for a finishing touch. Too expensive? Well, the Europeans are the experts in the methods of "hammer forging". Our best tooling comes from over there. Much faster than using a button to make a barrel, and nowadays just as good in terms of an accurate barrel. Gotta' be using that equipment, though, and not the old timey fairbanks morse stuff. ... felix

[Slowpoke]

Does anyone know where the Winchester brand of brass is/was made? I need some new 30WCF brass and hope to get the same quality I'm used to in my next purchase. I'm concerned that the 30-30 brass may have been made in the now closed plant in CT. I haven't purchased new 30WCF brass in the Winchester brand for about 5 to 6 years. Am I better off necking down a couple hundred virgin .32Spl cases? Neck wall uniformity is especially important to me since I load tight fitting cast bullets and usually outside neck trim very slightly without taking off brass all the way around.

Thanks,
MJ

MJ-- You ever read any of Frank Marshall Jr's writing on the 30-30?

If not in the Fouling shot # 174 there is a artical of his titled " neck length and accuracy " you might find it interesting.

good luck

[Marlin Junky]

Thanks Slowpoke,

I'm always interested in a good read about vintage cartridges.

Regards,
MJ

[floodgate]

Joe:

I wonder if they're using "impact extrusion"; I've seen it done to make the 40mm parachute flare shells about 8" long out of Aluminum. They used a cylindricel former sized to the inside diameter of the cylindrical case blank, and drove it at high speed and a lot of force into a heated flat blank - the metal just squirted up in a sheet over the former to make a cylinder ready for head and rim shaping and truing up the primer pocket; ready to trim and neck for a bottleneck profile. Seems I've heard this mentioned somewhere not too long ago.

BTW, not all "W-W" brass is made by Olin; their 7.62 x 54R stuff looks identical - except for the headstamp - to Sellier & Bellot brass,and they may "outsource" other specialty cases.

floodgate

[Frank46]

I believe at one time winchester used to sell IMI loaded 5.56mm under the winchester label. Frank

[Hip's Ax]

I believe at one time winchester used to sell IMI loaded 5.56mm under the winchester label. Frank

Yep, I have had 223 Winchester "white box" that says "made in Israel" and other boxes that were "made in USA". Both shoot better than you'd ever expect. I use this ammo for new barrel break in and also for function checks if I think theres a problem. A misfeed in an AR really munches up the misfed round so I hate to gamble with my carefully prepared match brass. :neutral:

[Dale53]

For years the ammo companies have made "runs" of specific brass for each other. I used to be amused at those people who were so "brass brand" specific because they could think that they were buying "X" but were really buying "Y".

However, it is my understanding that when they were making brass for others, they would use the others specs...

Personally, when I was shooting BPCR I learned early that Winchester Brass had greater capacity than Remington and both had greater capacity than Federal (45/70 and the calibers made from it). This was quite important to me as I was shooting a couple of 40/65's and I wanted all the punch that black could give me (this was when I was shooting NRA BPCR Sil where duplexing is not allowed).

FWIW
Dale53

[felix]

Dale, that's correct. There is no guarantee who made the cartridge cases on hand, but you can bet that Olin makes the case material in NA. PMC in SA, and IMI over there in the troubled area. There are probably no more than a handfull of these operations throughout the world. ... felix

[gregg]

Ok I got one for you. Weight a winchester white box brass and a reg. winchester
brass. or bulk brass . The reg winchester and bulk brass is great. the white box and any WCC mil stuff runs all over.Try it yourself.

[felix]

Keep in mind that the makers of the brass itself, and the makers of the cases are not the same anymore. Can be, but never count on it. ... felix

[StarMetal]

Doug,

I believe you may have hit on it. The article I saw did have a cylinder of brass. I guess you would say that is very similar to what american companies use, but slightly different.

Felix,

From my understanding PMC, which stands for Pany Metal Corporation, is in Korea. I would assume the raw matel comes from there, may be made there, or panned out. You forgot to add the company that I mentioned in that Wolf ammo article, Prvi. So that makes at least four.

Dale,

I've found in other rifle calibers, like 243, 7x57, 8x57, 308, and 30-06 that Winchester had less capacity then Remington, weighed more, and was thicker. In pistol round I absolutely hate Remington brass.

Joe

[Scrounger]

Doug,

I believe you may have hit on it. The article I saw did have a cylinder of brass. I guess you would say that is very similar to what american companies use, but slightly different.

Felix,

From my understanding PMC, which stands for Pany Metal Corporation, is in Korea. I would assume the raw matel comes from there, may be made there, or panned out. You forgot to add the company that I mentioned in that Wolf ammo article, Prvi. So that makes at least four.

Dale,

I've found in other rifle calibers, like 243, 7x57, 8x57, 308, and 30-06 that Winchester had less capacity then Remington, weighed more, and was thicker. In pistol round I absolutely hate Remington brass.

Joe

I'm likely stepping into something I'll regret later but...
1. PMC stands for Pusan Metal Corporation
2. They have a factory and Corporate Offices right here in Nevada, about a hundred miles away in Boulder City. In the Oriental fashon, they have a huge layout, with corporate housing, a super deluxe shooting range and gun club and other recreational facilities, all right on their grounds. They are located about 20 or 30 miles south of Boulder City off Hiway 95, surrounded by desert. And they won't give tours, I've tried.

[StarMetal]

Art,

Nope you're not stepping into anything pardner. In fact this is quite interesting. PMC is very confusing as you will soon see. Here's the first thing I found:

Poongsan Metals Corp and here's their website, once you get there look up products. http://poongsandefense.com/about04.htm

Then I found this:

About PMC
The original parent company, a U.S. corporation registered in Delaware, was founded in the late 1970's in New York as Patton Morgan Corporation. It began operations by importing military style small arms ammunition and .22 rimfire ammunition manufactured in South Korea. The ammunition was sold then, as it still is, under the registered brand name "PMC Ammunition", and the original slogan, "Precision Made Cartridges" has never changed.

Several years later, the company moved to Los Angeles, California, and its name was changed to Pan Metal Corporation. In addition to its ammunition business, the company also dealt in other facets of the metals business. Early in the 1980's, the increasingly successful ammunition line was expanded to include hunting (soft point) cartridges in the rifle calibers, and hollow points in the handgun ammunition.

In 1988, factory facilities were purchased near Boulder City, Nevada, for the production of ammunition to supplement the Korean imports, and for the purpose of producing two new lines of high performance cartridges. These were the Starfire handgun ammunition for law enforcement and home and personal defense, and X-Bullet rifle ammunition for big game hunting, which were introduced to the market in late 1991. In 1996, shotgun shells were added to the line.

The factory is operated under the name Eldorado Cartridge Corporation, and is a subsidiary of Pan Metal Corporation.

Today, the company's continuously expanding small arms ammunition product selection includes a full line of centerfire rifle and pistol ammunition, rimfire ammunition, shotgun shells, and reloading components. Recently, a new company known as B.C. Outdoors was incorporated and became a part of the "Eldorado Cartridge Corporation Group of Companies." B.C. Outdoors imports the Verona line of quality superposed shotguns from Italy. The company's stated purpose, like that of Eldorado Cartridge Corporation, is "to provide high quality outdoor products to its customers at a reasonable price."

During its more than two decades of ammunition production and sales, PMC Ammunition has become very well known in the United States and other countries of the world as a source of high quality small arms cartridges. The firm is now considered the fourth largest ammunition company in the United States.


Crazy isn't it? [smilie=b:

Gosh what's the real story about PMC?

Joe

[kywoodwrkr]

Olin also made a variety of 'brands' of brass cases.
I've gotten primer test cases from their East Alton location with many different headstamps.
Other tham WCC or Winchester that is.
S&W, and some Spanish come to mind.
Probably have a few of each somewhere as I tend to keep a sample of oddities I run across.
Winchester did indeed have S&B make up their 7,62x54R brass.
Was wholesaled by various vendors at the time.
Right now I don't have a clue what I did with the brass 'collection' from Olin.
Local dealer(Louisville,KY) bought the cardboard drums full and sold it by the pound. He'd get it with his normal truckload of other commodities from Olin.
I'd go in after the heavier cases had been sorted out and got some real good prices on a mix of once fired and primer test brass.
Oh, for the good ole days!
FWIW
DaveP kywoodwrkr

[Scrounger]

Perhaps you're right, all I know is what I was told at one time. I suppose it's possible there may have been another company selling ammo at one time, named as I thought and taking advantage of the PMC initials for business purposes. That sort of thing does happen... Or maybe I'm just wrong; that sort of thing happens too.

[StarMetal]

Who really knows Art...not us for sure. Seems it all went haywire when PMC from Korea started up that place in Nevada. The original story I heard was PMC in Korea was a copper company..that spread out into copper products.

Joe

[Dale53]

StaraMetal;
Your comment about Remington hand gun brass hit a chord here. When I was so active in IPSC, I finally quit using ANY commercial brass. I found that military brass
was heavier (thicker) and made a more reliable round (no deep seating at chambering). Remington indeed was the WORST offender. I got rid of all of my commercial .45 brass and now have ONLY military brass.

I hardly ever wore any brass out. Brass attrition was almost solely due to losing it in the grass...

Dale53

[StarMetal]

Dale,

I use alot of military 30-06 sized into other calibers. I also use alot of military 45acp, but have alot of foreign manufacture like IMI and PMC and have no problems with their brass at all.

Joe

[lovedogs]

Hope I'm not changing the subject too much but thought I'd mention some observations I've noticed.

Recently, when I started my lady friend shooting her .45-70, I didn't want to get our brass confused so thought I'd try some Starline in hers. I've been using Winchester in mine.

I found the Starline to be much heavier and of less capacity than the Winchester I have. I also found the Winchester to have less variation in weights than the Starline.

I've always had problems with new Win. cases having too tight primer pockets until they've been fired several times. Now I use a primer pocket uniformer on all my brass. The Win. pockets are more uniform than the Starline's, but are always too tight (in .45-70). The Starline's pockets vary a lot in size (tightness).

I'm not sure which will last longer. My loadings in .45-70 are light so brass lasts forever. But, in my opinion, the Win. brass is better quality than the Starline.

Remington? I gave up on all their brass a long time ago. I only use it when nothing else is available. Like when the 7-08 was new and you couldn't get any other brand. I liked their primer pockets but the annealing is off.

[Pepe Ray]

They only tell you what thet want you to know.
If you go back to when PMC first sold ammo in this country
(early 70'S), you'd learn that they were Pan Moon Co., owned
by the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, of the Moonies fame.
I was clerking retail for the oldest continuously operating
sporting goods distributor in the East. Pmc hit the shelves and the sales men had a field day 'till word got around that the Rev. was the owner.
Being an astute business man, he determined that the reason was political.
Thus he reorganized as Patton Morgan Co. (Good old American names ,
donchano).
As I recall, he tried another name change in there as well. Something like
Precision Munitions Co. or SLT.
Sorry, about the interjection. Moon has been a sore spot for me.

Cary on. Pepe Ray

[felix]

Thanks, Pepe, for the info. I'll try and remember that. I wonder if he has anything to do with the operations and/or stock ownership now? ... felix

[Pepe Ray]

About the time that the Kahr (SP?) auto loader was becoming quite popular,
what, 10 yrs ago? Time slips away, The head man at PMC was Rev. Moon's
Son. If that has changed I havn't heard but I'll wager BIG BUCKS that it hasn't left the family. Would you?
Now they own Auto Ordinance, ,,,keep your eye on the birdie.
Pepe Ray

[Bucks Owin]

I'm not fond of Remington brass either (and neither is John Linebaugh according to his article on the .45 Colt myth). I think it's kinda "brittle" and in a lot of my rifle cases (eg .243, .270) Remington brass hasn't got as much powder capacity as Winchester does...

PMC? I've got some .357 PMC brass that has the flash hole off center in about 10% of the cases. That doesn't make me too confident in their QC although it reloads "OK"....

FWIW,

Dennis

[Ron]

I recently bought 5000 of PMC small pistol primers................ where were they made?.........................................RUSS IA.

BTW they work OK and I am getting less misfire with them than I was with Winchester primers.

Ron

FESTINA LENTE

[9.3X62AL]

I use Winchester brass for the majority of my reloading ventures. One exception to this "rule" is with that company's 9 x 19 and the 9mm Magnum brass I bought or scrounged in the early 1990's......VERY tight primer pockets, so much so that seating primers became a real sore spot for me.

I didn't try the Pocket Uniformer mentioned above, and probably should have--I did try the RCBS Military Crimp Remover, and the tightness didn't swage out with that critter. I finally just reamed the daylights out of the primer pocket edges, and that made them usable. Since I was getting all the once-fired W-W brass I could scoop up at our agency's range, I wanted very much to make this stuff usable. A lotta work, that--there was no other option for the 30 Mauser/7.62 x 25 brass I made from the 9mm Magnums at that time, but there certainly were and are in 9 x 19.

As time went on, I just fired and discarded the W-W 9 x 19 brass--and stopped collecting it at the ranges. Even with the reaming, I would still have problems with primer seating every 10-12 rounds or so. Federal brass was a little scarce around here, but didn't cause grief with priming. Remington brass primed normally, and I found that although its case neck walls were noticeably thinner than the W-W or Federal brass--this condition did not cause any "telescoping" of bullets--real or redcoats--in my 9mm pistols or those of my buddies that shot with me. The previously discussed tendency of 9mm groove diameters to be a little bigger than nominal .355" is often carried over into chambering tolerances, too--so the thinner case necks might not be needed when you "upsize" yer boolits to fit the barrel's grooves--but the feature is there if needed in aftermarket barrels cut with closer tolerances.

Case makes do differ internally and dimensionally. This is especially true of the 9 x 19. Once these differences are known, they can be exploited to the loader's/shooter's advantage, as users of the 45-70 have listed above. I don't know if W-W 9mm cases still have tight primer pockets--I haven't tried them out to see. I do know that the Ponsness-Warren priming system--the swing arm on the Rockchucker (3 different arms and small primer assemblies........groan!), and the RCBS Positive Ram Priming Unit all had trouble with the cases. Like I said--I tried mightily to make those free-to-me cases WORK. I've used Rem 9mm cases for 10+ years, and will continue to do so.

[versifier]

Deputy Al,
They don't appear to have that problem any more. I have a bucket of about 3000 once fired WW 9mm cases that I have been loading up, bought as factory rounds by a friend, mostly "white box". I've been through about half of them so far without any trouble. If these particular cases were made by different companies, you can't prove it by me. I agree 100% that there is an amazing amount of variation between different makers' 9mm cases, but I think it would be safe to say it is probably made by more different companies worldwide than any other case today, so all the variation shouldn'be too surprising. What I like about my bucket full is that the cases are all consistant enough that I don't have to make any die adjustments. I don't shoot a lot of 9mm's, so I figure this stash will be good for ten or fifteen years, and I won't be worrying about other brands in the meantime.
I'm not a fan of either of those priming systems, both were a royal PITA and for me not worth the aggravation - one sits in a box (the assembly from my Rockchucker) and the other (the Positive Ram) I sold to someone I didn't like & hope he continues to find it as aggravating as I did. :mrgreen: I now use a Lee AutoPrime2 mounted on one of their small Reloader presses, and even though it limits me to CCI & Winchester primers, none of the places around here that sell components stock anything else. The only other system I would consider now would be the APS system, and that only if I HAD to use Rem or Fed primers, but I probably would have chosen it over the Lee had it been on the market at the time.