How carefully do you inspect commercial ammo

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PhantomI

New member
I was at the range today shooting my glock 22 using Winchester 40 Cal 165 grain ammo. As I was pulling a round to reload my magazine this is what I saw:
The round on the left measured 1.000 to one on the right was 1.125. Just guessing but I think the shorty would have blown the gun up. Something to think about. I tried find the phone number for Winchester. No luck there. Web based only. After three attempts to load the data sheet I gave up. So much for safety. A really sad day all in all. Just thought I would share. Yes the ammo was a wally world value pack.


Tom
 

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Winchester # 18003562666,
I bought some 3006 power points at Walmart some time back and the bullets were seated to different lengths.
This is one of the reasons why I went and bought some reloading gear ; I've been studying ever since.

Oh ! I bought some Nosler 3006 ABs this year and 1 out of 20 was stamped 25/06.

Ever since the power point purchase at Walmart, I check all factory made ammo !


Good eye by the way !
06
 
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I would raise cain wit Winchester over this....that really dangerous...especially getting bullet set back when the slide slams home...do not shoot any of these
 
Don't shoot any more from the box (I think you know that).

Contact Winchester and have the lot number ready. Send the pic, if requested. Approach them as someone who wants to give constructive feedback regarding their quality control; rather than an upset customer.

I think the shorty would have blown the gun up.
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Well, it certainly would be dumb to knowingly shoot it. But most likely, it has a weak crimp and would start to move soon after the primer ignites. And probably discharge with the firearm being none the worse for wear. But to reiterate, that's all just mental academics. Common sense dictates that the round should be kept far away from any firearms and their magazines.
 
Update

Got all the way to a Reps voice mail. Will continue to press the issue so that they know something went wrong. I'm not mad, just disappointed.

Tom
 
I got a box of WWB 9 mm with several cases that had crushed rims. Winchester was pretty good about it, thanking me for notifying them and sending me a certificate for my next purchase ($20 IIRC).

My first thought on seeing the picture was setback from multiple chamberings, but if I understand you right it came out of the box that way. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks who would either not notice or not understand the significance of what they were seeing. Good that you caught it.
 
Reminds me of some 380 Auto brass I picked up a few months ago at a local range. The cases were grossly deformed. It appeared someone had shot them in a 9mm.

I try to pay close attention when I'm loading magazines with factory or my reloads.
 
Talked with a Winchester rep today. They want all the ammo back and they will refund me for the purchase. I'll UPS it back monday and that will be that. Thanks for all your comments.

Tom
 
I had the exact same problem with a box of Winchester 230gr .45 acp FMJ recently. They were so bad, I could push the bullet deeper into the case with my thumb.

I contacted Winchester as well. Not so much to complain, but just to let them know something was wrong. The rep asked if I wanted to return them and figured it wasn't worth the hassle, so I gave him the lot# and the name of the store where I bought them.

I ended up pulling the bullets and reseating them... with a proper crimp this time.:rolleyes:
 
Having owned a Toyota Corolla that was a lemon, I always dump out factory ammo in a box and give it a once over. I have had a few weird rounds including some 223 that was missing a primer, very short 9mm and 45s, and a 357 round that the bullet was backwards. Haven't had a factory ammo problem in 5 years....guess when I started reloading?
 
Some years back I was with a buddy when we bought some ammo for a weekend outing, he bought two boxes of 30-06 shells, I got a box of 30-40 Krag and 303 British.

Two weekends later we go to shoot it up, he opened the first box of 30-06, and noticed an anomaly, one round was .270.

We checked every single round in all the boxes, just the one. The gun shop got the empty box and the round, they were going to take care of dealing with the factory.
 
We checked every single round in all the boxes, just the one. The gun shop got the empty box and the round, they were going to take care of dealing with the factory.
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Not all such mix ups are factory errors

In your example it's far more likely Billy Bob and Bubba were comparing the two rounds in the store and put them back in the wrong boxes
 
That load on the left of the image is not from any standard box of ammo. It is a clear screw up. If you saw that in your handloads, you'd never give it a pass. Something went wrong with the seating tooling and nobody noticed in time to prevent it finding its way into a box. And in something moderately high pressure (as pistol loads go), like the 40 S&W, that kind of error can cause high pressure.

On another forum we had a member who had tested several hundred thousand rounds of ammunition as part of a government evaluation contract. He commented that if you shoot enough factory ammo, eventually you encounter every error that handloaders ever make: hot rounds, zero charge rounds, wrong seating depth, missing primer, backward primer, out of spec case. There are also errors a reloader never makes: a case with no flash hole (I've found two of these in bulk brass over time), a seated bullet jacket with no core, a backward seated bullet. Goofy stuff.

One time I discovered an LC Match 30-06 case I'd fired that felt funny. It was heavy toward the head. I looked inside with a flashlight and saw a suspiciously dark area down by the flash hole. My dental pick removed a 35 grain flattened piece of lead bullet core metal. The round probably ran a little high on pressure and velocity, but apparently not enough to be a serious issue, as I didn't recall any fliers during the match it was issued for. That was LC M72, and those loads ran mild anyway.

I generally inspect appearance and feel weight while loading magazines, regardless of the source of the ammo. I've wound up rejecting any number of .22 Rimfire cartridges that way over time. Mostly mangled or severely tipped bullets that probably would not have fed anyway.

If you have the time to spare, you can check rounds for weight and see if any outliers appear. I'd do that sorting ammo for a match or for a carry gun application. It's not enough rounds to make that extra effort impractical. But just for shooting at the range, nope. Sight and feel is all they get there.
 
I don't shoot factory ammo often, but when I do... I don't make an extra effort to inspect it. I do look at every round as I load it, and I'm fairly sure I would notice the leftmost round in OP's pic, but I don't do what I would call a thorough inspection. Maybe I should. My own reloads are a different story. I inspect those as if an idiot loaded them. (No comments from the peanut gallery!)
 
I have never had a bad center fire factory round that I know of. I look at them as I put them in the magazine but that's about it. Plenty of bad rimfire rounds. And I had a bad case of Rio 12ga. The case was actually flying out al9ng with the wading and shot Leaving just the brass. 8 actually didn't notice as it was at a 3-gun and I was trying to make time, but the ro picked up on it.
 
My (and probably just about every handloader reading this) ammo is better than factory - period.

My quality control is superior, every step of the way.
 
Thank you for your public service announcement. I'm glad Winchester is taking responsibility and getting you some new ammo.

BTW, I found one factory round at the range which I kept. The primer was loaded backwards. :p The Rangemaster was present when it was discarded and want it for himself. I use it to show people to inspect their ammunition.
 
That is just astonishing--I would never even consider the 3 rounds on the right to make it out the door, but definitely not the one on the left. Unbelievable.

The only way I can think of for this to happen on a hand loader's bench would be if the seating die wasn't locked down and was backing out with each stroke. Or in the case of a Lock-n-Load type bushing that had backed out was just floating in the press. Even if any of this happened, you wouldn't get the over-seated bullet shown on the left in any case, and you wouldn't get that ridiculous crimp.

I suppose it won't be long before we just ship all the components to China and have them ship them back assembled, then it won't be a problem anymore.
 
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