Winchester brass

I have noticed that when I load for .223 that my Winchester brass takes very little pressure to seat primers compared to all the other brass I have used. Its not like the primer will slip or fall out but it takes considerably less pressure to seat then when I use Remington brass. I would say the pockets loosen after 1-2 firings. This happens even with light loads. Has anyone else seen this with Winchester brass?

RemMan700 wrote:I have noticed that when I load for .223 that my Winchester brass takes very little pressure to seat primers compared to all the other brass I have used. Its not like the primer will slip or fall out but it takes considerably less pressure to seat then when I use Remington brass. I would say the pockets loosen after 1-2 firings. This happens even with light loads. Has anyone else seen this with Winchester brass?

i have noticed it a little. though, i also have thousands of 223 brass, so its not very often i see a remington.. but when i do, i do notice they take much less pressure to seat the primers.

but, considering how the bolt supports the primer and back end of the brass, i dont think a primer could ever come out.. unless it falls out before its chambered. which i have had happen before with poor seating. i had lots of poor seating issues when i used my RCBS press to prime brass.

now i use a RCBS Bench primer, which solved 100% of my priming issues. i no longer have primers going in sideways, never had them flip, nor seat strangly.. they always come out perfect.

so if you ever get a chance to get a RCBS bench primer, i would highly recommend it.


Dan

I have also noticed this since I first started reloading. I think it's just a characteristic of Win. brass?
It hasn't ever caused any problems with my reloads, so I just put it out of my mind and go ahead with my loading as usual. Remington brass on the other hand has tighter primer pockets and I've even noticed that sometimes a tiny sliver of brass will shear off when seating the primer. I have no idea if it's coming off the case around the primer pocket or if it's actually coming off the primer itself? But again, it's never caused a problem so I don't worry too much about it.
I like the Winchester and Remington brass both and I use both depending on what I have on hand, but if given the choice I will use the Winchester before anything else. Or if I find a good deal on some 1xfired Remington brass I won't hesitate to buy it and I have had very good luck with it just the same as the Winchester brass.

I have mixed head stamp with all of my 223's. I mainly use the R.P as the primers are not crimped in place so no pocket swaging needed. I do have a few winchesters as well as the winchester that you get at walmart in 5.56. I have not tried loading any of them yet. I will defintaly keep my eye out on the Winchester brass to see how loose the pockets become.

Now on some of my other calibers, I have had this happen.

I keep an eye on them and even though they slide in the pockets with very little force I have not had one leak around the primer with any kind of blowback.

RemMan700 wrote:I have noticed that when I load for .223 that my Winchester brass takes very little pressure to seat primers compared to all the other brass I have used. Its not like the primer will slip or fall out but it takes considerably less pressure to seat then when I use Remington brass. I would say the pockets loosen after 1-2 firings. This happens even with light loads. Has anyone else seen this with Winchester brass?

fletch is having the opposite problem with his Winchester 308 brass, it is more difficult to seat the primer than with Remington (which he prefers).

I prefer Winchester and have never had a problem or noticed what your talking about. I do ream all my primer pockets though, so that might be helping?

hmm... and see I dont think I have ever had this issue with any of my .308 brass just the .223. I will have to pay more attention when I load some more .308's.

Daywalker wrote:I have mixed head stamp with all of my 223's. I mainly use the R.P as the primers are not crimped in place so no pocket swaging needed. I do have a few winchesters as well as the winchester that you get at walmart in 5.56. I have not tried loading any of them yet. I will defintaly keep my eye out on the Winchester brass to see how loose the pockets become.

Now on some of my other calibers, I have had this happen.

I reloaded some of the Winchesters from Walmart in 22-250 for my uncle's TC Icon, the 40rd. value pack with the 45gr. HP....you know the ones?
They loaded just fine like everything else and dang accurate! Of course the accuracy part was all me.
I'm wondering how they will hold up after 3-4 times around? I doubt there's any difference, but they could be thinner walled or something like that? We'll see.

BTW- My uncle, his buddy, and a guy that works with his buddy all scored out on their first day hunting antelope. Each of them got a buck and a doe, then they spent the entire next day bustin prairie dogs. He said he had an absolute blast!
Here's the best part, those TSX's that I loaded for him performed flawlessly, he had 2 shots and 2 kills. The buck took about 10 steps then fell dead, the doe never took a step. He recovered the bullet from the buck which went in the left shoulder, through both lungs, and lodged under the skin on the opposite side. It opened up just like the Barnes website shows and when I weighed it......it didn't even lose a single grain! Un-freaking Believable.
It's nice to know that you get something right every now and then, and my uncle had an awesome trip.
He bragged me up to both of the other guys who fired multiple shots at their antelope.

RemMan700 wrote:I have noticed that when I load for .223 that my Winchester brass takes very little pressure to seat primers compared to all the other brass I have used. Its not like the primer will slip or fall out but it takes considerably less pressure to seat then when I use Remington brass. I would say the pockets loosen after 1-2 firings. This happens even with light loads. Has anyone else seen this with Winchester brass?

I only use LC for my 223 so can't say, I do however load HOT in 45colt and use win brass, my 243 is win also, never had a problem.

only problem i have ever had with Winchester brass in 223 was making sure to trim them they were longer than all the others. I have noticed that Federal always crimps their primers in 223 so my RCBS primer pocket swagger has gotten a work out.