Winchester brass substandard?

[aarolar]

I purchased a pack of 50 winchester 308 brass to resize for use in my 358 Win and sat down this afternoon to load up some rounds for the weekend. Upon opening the bag and working with the brass I came to realise that all the necks were cut on roughly a 5* angle which would be no big deal except the short side was way short for even 308 specs. Case length for the 308 family is 2.015 and most of these cases were around 1.97x on the short side of the cut, after forming to 358 25% wouldn't clean up at 1.970 and the rest just barely did. Is this acceptable for new packaged brass? I personally would expect it to come out the bag extra long and need trimming to spec.

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[William Yanda]

From the title I expected a report of soft brass or something similar. Irregular necks on 100% of new brass would be unacceptable to me.

[Texas by God]

No, that's a bad bag of brass. Now that you've 358'd them you can't get a refund but at least you have some to load. I saw the title and I thought of the Win 25-06 brass I bought that split necks on the 3rd loading(not max). I've switched to Privi Partizan and Rem. cases.

[aarolar]

No, that's a bad bag of brass. Now that you've 358'd them you can't get a refund but at least you have some to load. I saw the title and I thought of the Win 25-06 brass I bought that split necks on the 3rd loading(not max). I've switched to Privi Partizan and Rem. cases.

I figured this and before I resized them all I did look for a way to contact someone at winchester but they don't give a number only a message/email option and I didn't feel like wasting that much of my life over 22 bucks. I'll shoot these for now and get something better in the near future.

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[edp2k]

If it was a red and black bag it was the "new" Winchester brass which is actually made by Hornady.
Notice how the "new" Winchester brass red and black bag matches the existing Hornady brass red and black bag.

[lefty o]

not acceptable, it should be cut straight.

[buckshotshoey]

I have noticed this on Winchester .223 cases. But they were long enough to trim square.

[armoredman]

I tried to deal with Winchester over bad components before, sent the item in and voila! Item is gone and nobody knows what I'm talking about.

[aarolar]

Oh well live and learn I've only bought new brass twice in my life and this is one of them. Probably go back to buying once fired.

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[Shepherd2]

When I bought rifle brass I would always buy Winchester if I could find it. Then about 6 years ago I bought 100 Winchester 6.5x55 cases. I threw 8 cases in the scrap bucket for defects that made them unusable. The worst was a case that didn't have an extractor groove. I should have contacted Winchester about the bad brass but I didn't since it was only about $4 worth of cases. Of course, I don't buy Winchester brass anymore.

[Texas by God]

Starline is now making .308 based Brass-including .358.
That or reforming 7.62 Nato brass is the best option it seems.
There won't be any once-fired .358 Win around.

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[MostlyLeverGuns]

Starline makes 358 Win brass, Hornady too.

[aarolar]

Starline is now making .308 based Brass-including .358.
That or reforming 7.62 Nato brass is the best option it seems.
There won't be any once-fired .358 Win around.

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Yea I realise that I was referring to buying once fired 308

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[Earlwb]

I finished loading up 100 rounds of .308 Win using new Winchester brand cases and the rounds all came out OK. Of course I never looked into close detail at the case necks. I only ran the cases through the die to make sure the necks were round, etc before loading. I have not tried converting them to any other caliber though.

[country gent]

A couple years ago I bought 2 100 count bags of Winchester 220 swift brass. This brass is good brass but the necks were thick enough they had to be neck turned to fit in my ruger number 1Vs chamber. I talked to the local smith I used and he had barreled a rifle to 220 swift a couple months earlier and the factory ammo he tried to test fire the rifle with had thick necks also. The brass is right every where else and was some very consistant brass after I took .002 of the dia. One plus to this is I know have very even necks on this brass and it shoots very well for me. LOL

[Larry Gibson]

If it was a red and black bag it was the "new" Winchester brass which is actually made by Hornady.
Notice how the "new" Winchester brass red and black bag matches the existing Hornady brass red and black bag.

Maybe both Winchester and Hornady just get the bags from the same supplier?

[OS OK]

I had problems with Win's .45 Colt...about 1/3'rd of the rims were too wide to fit the RCBS shell holder. Some of the 1/3'rd could be twisted around and forced but I thought why? I'll just have to do it again...at first I made a wooden dowel I could shove the case onto, then spun it with a drill motor over a diamond hone...a few cases went by and I came to my senses and 'deep 6'd the whole mess!'

"Grumble...grumble!"

[Tenbender]

If it was a red and black bag it was the "new" Winchester brass which is actually made by Hornady.
Notice how the "new" Winchester brass red and black bag matches the existing Hornady brass red and black bag.

Bingo ?

[wistlepig1]

I purchased a pack of 50 winchester 308 brass to resize for use in my 358 Win and sat down this afternoon to load up some rounds for the weekend. Upon opening the bag and working with the brass I came to realise that all the necks were cut on roughly a 5* angle which would be no big deal except the short side was way short for even 308 specs. Case length for the 308 family is 2.015 and most of these cases were around 1.97x on the short side of the cut, after forming to 358 25% wouldn't clean up at 1.970 and the rest just barely did. Is this acceptable for new packaged brass? I personally would expect it to come out the bag extra long and need trimming to spec.

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I had a similar thing with some 22 Hornet brass about 5 or 6 years ago. I got 2 100's and the necks would had been way under spec's. I called Winchester and told them about the problem. I offered to mail them a sample or some pictures. The lady said that wouldn't be needed, she sent me 2 factory coupons for $25.00 each to cover my cost of the 2 bags. In a day of poor Mfg'ers it was nice to see a good one.

[samari46]

Sellier & Bellot the Czech ammo manufacturer used to advertise that they made ammunition and cases for U.S. companies on their website sometime back. So it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to think that they may still be doing this at this time. Then again I could be wrong on this. Frank