Winchester necks

[Fatman]

Got into a new bag of brass, and the necks are cut on such an angle, that if case trimmed even, the case is way too short to load. I have always used Winchester brass in other calibers, and have not had this bad of a problem. Out of 100 brass, I have 22 that are cut this way. Has anyone else had this problem? My first 200 were not bad at all.

[Rick in Oregon]

Fatman: Two bags ago I had 12 split neck rejects of WW 204 brass. The previous six or seven bags were all acceptable, even in terms of neck thickness. Every once in a while their QC slips, and we get stuck with it. Better luck next time, or get Nosler/Norma for the primo stuff. I just got 200 pieces of it, and it is all prepped and weight sorted, but dang!......the price!

[Va varminter]

Since the 204 is the only high volume gun I've loaded for(400 pieces of brass), I've only seen problems with win.204 brass. The only ones I've found that I rejected had a crease or pleat in the neck.But I figure for the price compared to other brands I can deal with a couple of bad ones in a bag.

[remy3424]

I had no rejects in the first 300, but upon 1st firing had roughly 10% split necks.

[Fatman]

After trimming my cases, the best I can get is 1.838. Is this acceptable?

[OldTurtle]

In a way, I'm glad someone posted about the Winchester 'split neck' problem... I recently was prepping 100 rounds of once fired brass and found a half dozen that the necks were split and thought maybe it was something I had done wrong along the way....

These were some I had purchased last Summer through Midway and still have 900 sitting in storage..

[Rick in Oregon]

Old Turtle: As mentioned earlier, I've had zero WW split necks in some bags, and as many as 12 in one bag recently. Considering the overall cost of 204 brass now, I still consider it the best deal out there. The other alternative would be R-P brass, which some prefer, and is still about the same overall cost as WW. I started out using WW, have a lot of it, so don't want to interject another "regular" brand into the equation now.

I'm referring to splits spotted before the brass every sees the inside of my neck sizing die. Skipper was the first to bring this problem to the forum, and I wondered how I had been so fortunate to never get any split necks right out of the bag. That lasted two full years, now the WW split neck issue has made it's way to the west coast it appears, as the last three bags of 100 pcs. all had rejects to some degree.

I'll continue to use it, along with a select batch of Nosler 204 brass I'm working with on my custom M700 204R 11 twist, but considering I have over 1,000 pieces of 204 brass, it is, and will continue to be the creme of the crop, and only used for true "accuracy loads" in that rifle, as it's just too spendy to use for high volume colony rodent shooting.

You're not the only one, and you're probably not doing anything wrong, old friend.

[OldTurtle]

Since this seems to be a 'recent' common problem,,, I'm wondering if the companies are starting to 'outsource' some of their manufacturing to places where the quality control issues are involving some substandard metal processing...

As I said, I have another 900 pieces in bags that have never been open or inspected by me... Now I'm inclined to go through those, just to assure myself that they are good....

If I find some that are substandard, Olin-Winchester is right across the Mississippi river from me and I'll take them over to the plant and advise them.

[acloco]

I have switched to Rem exclusively for the above reasons.

After fully prepping all of my Win brass, I can expect to lose 3% on the first firing and up to 3% each time after that - always split necks.

Rem....well...I lost two in the field, but found one of them on the next trip.

[giterdone]

Ive been using Hornady brass but decided to try some WW brass. I found necks cut on an angle, folds in the shoulder, flashholes with burrs, primer pockets dished in depth and corners rounded. If I had known this I would have spent the extra money for Nosler brass. Now I have been recutting the primer pockets, champfering the flashholes, inside and outside neck reaming and now I found that the neck thickness is off several thousanths so I must outside neck turn all the cases. The time spent doing all of this just isnt worth it. Never again, its either Hornady or Nosler brass for me.

[surfclod]

This is good to know.

I was planning to purchase some new unprimed brass (so I could be sure that they are all from the same lot), then prep them all and use them exclusively for paper punching. My options locally were Win, Rem, (about $30 per 50)or Nosler (about $55 per 50). From what I have been reading, only by buying the Nosler would I be getting a better product than the Hornady that I have at the moment.

I will probably just take the time to weigh and sort through my Hornady brass to get about 100-200 consistent cases to set aside for when I want to try and shoot some impressive groups on paper.

[jo191145]

After trimming my cases, the best I can get is 1.838. Is this acceptable?

Yes thats acceptable.
All the Nosler brass I've bought came pre trimmed at 1.836.

The last 204 and 223 Win brass I bought was actually of very good quality. Neck thickness seems dead even.
Better than my Lapua 6mm and .308 cal brass in fact. Obviously work needs to be done on the rest of the case. It was headspaced very short though.

[cynergyguy]

I was wondering why you guys don't like the hornady brass, I bought a bunch of hornady loaded ammo from midway last year and have been reloading the cases, I have never had a slit neck a tight primer pocket or any other defect and some of the brass has been loaded 8 times, it seems to be a quality product JMHO.

[Fatman]

Took a hundred out to the range yesterday still shooting right at five shot half inch groups. Plenty good enough for local varmint hunting. Had to play with the scope a little since trimming the brass back a little more, but not more than a couple clicks here and there. I buy the winchester mainly because of cost, and most of the time my handloads group pretty well using winchester. I think that the QC has suffered as of late though. I can get ten rounds from the bench at a hundred yards that a dime will cover, so that is good enough for me.

[Hawkeye Joe]

If you ask me ALL brass is hit or miss. My last batch of Lapua in .223 is a joke. The first batch was flawless. The 100 pieces WW .243 I just picked up locally is perfect.