Winchester factory ammo, serious issue

A guy at the bench next to me had a whoopsy today. Shooting a 270 Mauser, the RO I hear a rather larger bang and have a geeze at what comes out of the chamber. Answer: ruptured case, damaged bolt face and probably chamber ( newish to him, 2nd hand off Voldemort) had a look at his other fired cases, and a few were showing long marks In the same place, so initially we suspected something with the chamber. Then another fella picked up an unfired round, and it had a big old gouge lengthways on the base of the case, as did over half of the remaining ammo in that packet!

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Hmm lucky no one injured, I'd be looking to give Winchester a rev up, a please explain :omg:

Don't shot 270s how many times does it need to be said.

Yep. As for his 'new' rifle? It's scrap, wonder who's buying the poor guy another? It's not top dollar gear or anything, but still. But yes at least all eyes fingers etc all still attached. If it had gone bang I'd have had bits in my arse hahahaha, I was helping a new shooter on the next bench

Brads hit the nail on the head. He's alive thats the main thing. Now he can regret his bad decision making, buy a new rifle chambered in something useful and reload

thanks for info..will take note of batch number on box and pass it on.

That is not cool! How deep were the gauges? They don't look overly deep? Anither reason to reload - if you fuck it up , you can only blame yourself.

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Originally Posted by Grunta

That is not cool! How deep were the gauges? They don't look overly deep? Anither reason to reload - if you fuck it up , you can only blame yourself.

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Quite deep, more like a very fine slice than a gouge, so it doesn't look that deep in the photo above. Obviously deep enough to rupture the case :o

Its Winchester, nuf said

In the states that would be enough evidence for a law suit, they would settle out of court. My advice is to go to the winchester agent. You have the evidence of the unfired rounds.

Did they ever do anything about the primer issues?

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Originally Posted by Gibo

Did they ever do anything about the primer issues?

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+1, I would like to know what to do with my Winchester LR 1000 primers I brought before learning about this whole mess.

Throw away $90 worth of primers?
Fire them and risk damaging my eyes and rifle?

As Gibo said, just avoid Winchester I guess. If you don't know cos they don't pipe up and say/do anything, then what other option is there? They must just be using the old 'ignore it and maybe it'll go away' tactic. This is the second issue I've heard of/seen in a few months - and haven't heard any comment from them at all. It's not like they can just blame it on amateur reloaders or whatever now, they're factory rounds

Now, I've got 900 small rifle primers of theirs that I'm starting to look at sideways.. Only $50 worth, should probably just $1 reserve them with a 'buyer beware' or hand them in for destruction rather than worry about potentially blowing up my $2k gun and maybe blinding myself. It's a major issue and I'm steering well clear in the meantime

Just sell on trademe

Contact the nz importer. They were more than happy to replace my LR primers with another brand a couple of years back. Never had a problem with Win SR or SP primers.

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Originally Posted by NZShoota

Contact the nz importer. They were more than happy to replace my LR primers with another brand a couple of years back. Never had a problem with Win SR or SP primers.

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It is not just replacing them, it is the damage to the rifle as well.

thanks for sharing, will review all my Winchester 308, glad I don't have much of it left...

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Originally Posted by stug

It is not just replacing them, it is the damage to the rifle as well.

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That, and the fact that there's at least two quality issues that are being ignored. If there are two, I'd bet there are more, and they have said squat. That's two guns ruined, are they going to wait until someone has a face full of metal or worse before they at least issue a recall and check of what they are selling to the public?

My mate had some issues with Winchester last month. We sighted his new rifle with Win in April ,was doing just over 1" @ 100 yd. Than he bought a few more boxes of .308 PP 150gr, from a different batch. Groups opened up 3,4-4" @ 100 :wtfsmilie: Checked scope - stock screws - bases nothing wrong. Checked ammo and was a bit surprised.

Out of 3 box:

- 21 had a full crimp
- on 8 the crimp was hardly visible, just on the edge of the case mouth
- the rest has been crimped sideways

The bullet seating depth showed 3.8 mm difference between the two extreme.
After firing some of the brass started to split at the mouth where the bloody collet weakened the material.

Tried my SST loads unfortunately his rifle doesn't like it, so he's shooting Federal now.

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Originally Posted by NZShoota

Contact the nz importer. They were more than happy to replace my LR primers with another brand a couple of years back. Never had a problem with Win SR or SP primers.

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Who is the NZ importer?

ammo issue or rifle issue is the other thing did it happen on the 1st shot did you have a look at some other cases and were they ok.... havehing said that my bet is the ammo same as you @Tommy
i brought a pack a fre years ago (308) it had 2 7mm-08 in it was a sealed pack right out the brick (shop had to open a new box of boxes for me as they had run out on the shelf i saw them cut the factory seal and everything the new zealand importer for winchester should have to reinburse the cost of his rifle and box of ammo

hes very lucky he wasnt hurt thats the main thing.... the rifle can be replaced or fixed with a rebarrel and fix up the bolt?????

@Happy wasn't this the brand you had issues feeding and with the shoulders in .308 a couple of weekends ago in Puhoi? Seemsa little co-incidental

Might be so common issues here off a faulty machine or their tollerances are way out.... Bullet seating out of the box varied about 3.5mm to my eye Harv-meister was showing me...

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Originally Posted by MassiveAttack

+1, I would like to know what to do with my Winchester LR 1000 primers I brought before learning about this whole mess.

Throw away $90 worth of primers?
Fire them and risk damaging my eyes and rifle?

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@MassiveAttack

Donate them to ole P38 ................. I'll safely dispose of them for you one at a time. :)

Cheers
Pete

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Originally Posted by Tommy

Now, I've got 900 small rifle primers of theirs that I'm starting to look at sideways.. Only $50 worth, should probably just $1 reserve them with a 'buyer beware' or hand them in for destruction rather than worry about potentially blowing up my $2k gun and maybe blinding myself. It's a major issue and I'm steering well clear in the meantime

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@Tommy

Why risk your ruining your expensive rifle with these substandard primers?

Donate them to ole P38 ......... I'll safely dispose of them for you one at a time. :)

I've had exactly the same thing happen to me in my Winchester 94 44mag.

I noticed two ejected cases had burnt through the side walls almost the entire length of the case when I ejected them from the firearm

I immediately emptied the remaining rounds from the magazine and found one projectile had been pushed almost all the way back into the case.

This round had a visible split the length of the case

Upon inspection of the remaining 20 odd loaded cases in the packet of 50 I found three more with visible cracks down the length of the case.

These were new PMC rounds purchased from a local sports store.

on the advise of the store owner I wrote to the NZ distributor and sent them a couple of the rounds as evidence and asked how this could happen.

I'm currently waiting for their reply, however I'm not holding my breath as this occurred in 1984.

Cheers
Pete

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Originally Posted by Carpe Diem

@Happy wasn't this the brand you had issues feeding and with the shoulders in .308 a couple of weekends ago in Puhoi? Seemsa little co-incidental

Might be so common issues here off a faulty machine or their tollerances are way out.... Bullet seating out of the box varied about 3.5mm to my eye Harv-meister was showing me...

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No my ammo was Belmont plus new reloads in Lapua cases. I m still waiting to find out what's wrong. Couldn't fit fired cases back in it wtf ?
But the ammo all worked fine in another gun so it definitely a firearm not ammo problem..Under warranty be my first one ever I ve had problems like that with ....

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Originally Posted by rambo-6mmrem

ammo issue or rifle issue is the other thing did it happen on the 1st shot did you have a look at some other cases and were they ok.... havehing said that my bet is the ammo same as you @Tommy
i brought a pack a fre years ago (308) it had 2 7mm-08 in it was a sealed pack right out the brick (shop had to open a new box of boxes for me as they had run out on the shelf i saw them cut the factory seal and everything the new zealand importer for winchester should have to reinburse the cost of his rifle and box of ammo

hes very lucky he wasnt hurt thats the main thing.... the rifle can be replaced or fixed with a rebarrel and fix up the bolt?????

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That picture of the big bright gouge in the casing is a new unfired round straight out of the packet! Over half the unfired rounds had the same cut, they hadn't been loaded into the magazine or anything. The other picture there is obviously the one that has been fired and had the malfunction, I think it was the fifth or so round that he'd fired that afternoon.

Ahh Happy Remembered the Lapua handloads - just couldn't remember the factory stuff you were also having issue with..

Ahh Happy Remembered the Lapua handloads - just couldn't remember the factory stuff you were also having issue with.. But I do remember Harvey showing us the different shell projectile seating depth weren't those Winchester in the white packet...

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Originally Posted by Tommy

That picture of the big bright gouge in the casing is a new unfired round straight out of the packet! Over half the unfired rounds had the same cut, they hadn't been loaded into the magazine or anything. The other picture there is obviously the one that has been fired and had the malfunction, I think it was the fifth or so round that he'd fired that afternoon.

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oh i thorght it was the other side of the buggerd one thats bad bro needs to show that to winchester for sure and they need to replace his gun for sure thats a very serrous safty issue i wonder how much more ammo is affected they may need to do a recall

Return the faulty ammo (well photographed and written up) to the retailer in the first instance. Winchester NZ are required to replace the faulty ammo and also make good any loss incurred through its use, provided the ammo is proven to be faulty. Is it possible that there is a burr on the edge of the chamber of the rifle that could have caused the gouge when cycling the rounds through the action? Such ammo faults are not common, and the factories conduct QC checks during production to avoid such things. If a batch has come from US production with those faults then Winchester could be in deep crap, given the sort of damage claims given by US courts.

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Originally Posted by stug

It is not just replacing them, it is the damage to the rifle as well.

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Sorry I was refering to the primer issues not the more serious split cases.

In the case of the primers I delt with Steves Wholesale who was the wholesaler who supplied the store where i purchased them from.

I could be wrong but I think Kilwell could be the importer for Winchester Ammo in the North Island.

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Originally Posted by gundoc

Return the faulty ammo (well photographed and written up) to the retailer in the first instance. Winchester NZ are required to replace the faulty ammo and also make good any loss incurred through its use, provided the ammo is proven to be faulty. Is it possible that there is a burr on the edge of the chamber of the rifle that could have caused the gouge when cycling the rounds through the action? Such ammo faults are not common, and the factories conduct QC checks during production to avoid such things. If a batch has come from US production with those faults then Winchester could be in deep crap, given the sort of damage claims given by US courts.

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@gundoc It was the guy at the next bench, I didn't think to get his number or anything, just a couple of relevant pics. The rounds were in that
condition in the packet, the one with bright gouge came out straight out the packet (I picked that one out of the packaging myself), hadn't touched the rifle in any way. I think he was a new shooter as he didn't seem very confident about what was going on. Because he didn't seem very confident, I told him repeatedly to get the rifle checked by a gunsmith as he wasn't sure what to do next. Hopefully the smith he goes to will point him at the supplier and give him some decent advice. There were two deep pin prick-type holes in the bolt face, but couldn't see into the chamber obviously. It was a Mauser 98, so at least it went bang in something nice and strong.

On another note, that work you did on my marlin trigger was excellent, just the job! I'm a very happy chappie.