Thread: Winchester X .223 Not very good

Hi all, Not sure if this is a bad batch or just poorly made in general. After a big shoot in the weekend I found that a majority of these Winchester X .223 rounds had splits in the necks. I guess be aware if you have these or are possibly looking to purchase. I will not be shooting Winchester .223 anymore personally. Anyone else had this recently?

Ouch. What load were you running ?

My observation is that some commercial ammo suffers badly from the galvanic corrosion between the dissimilar metals in the projectile and brass.

Considering this I would say most are assembled with lube in the necks to avoid this, but some ammo no doubt gets assembled "dry" in the neck area with the potential for galvanic "welding" to take place.

When disassembled by hand the projectile comes out with a loud "crack" as the corrosion lets go, perhaps under the extreme stress of firing this is too much for the time hardened brass to handle and as the corrosion lets go unevenly the neck cracks.

I’ve seen this in Hornady .223 too. Craig had a batch of it.

Not good.
Shooting an AR15 or AK action?

Shooting Ar15. These were all brand new from the box. Never reloaded. That's the surprising part. Do you think this would have affected my barrel?

Very high chance of Little to no damage

I wonder if it's worth going back to the shop I purchased them from and complaining. Would seriously piss me off if my brand new ar15 was damaged because of this ammo. GGrrr. Thanks for the comments. They are all helpful

Interesting, didn't notice any split necks from the box I tired (64gr) but it looked quite inconsistent to the eye and didn't group well from my rifle.

this was the 55gr jacketed soft point. Not really sure what to use now. Will have to do some more research. :S

Oversize chamber?

Originally Posted by rs200nz

I wonder if it's worth going back to the shop I purchased them from and complaining.

Yes, take them back. Could be just a bad batch from Winchester.

I am using an NEA AR15 which apparently can fire .223 safely.

Might have not annealed it properly, or at all or something. I've heard of Federal/American Eagle doing this as well.

I've also had PMC brass do this.

I've even seen cracks in new PMC brass before it was fired.

Cheers
Pete