WWB Quality
Squeaky and I burned up 300 rounds of Winchester White Box 9mm yesterday with disappointing results. Both my CZ-85 and FN Hi-Power had numerous stoppages: double-feeds in the CZ and failures to return to battery in the HP. Those guns have always run with 100% reliability in the past.
Squeaky had a live round stick in the chamber of her XD with the slide about 1/4″ out of battery; examination of the round showed the bullet seated so crooked that its base actually poked through the case wall. Spooky.
My usual range ammo is Remington UMC; we tried the Winchester because it was cheap and available. I don’t think I’ll be buying it again.
My gun totally could have blown up in my hand. I’m not buying that ammo any more.
Comment by Squeaky Wheel — March 24, 2008 @ 2:21 am
Hmmmm. You’ve got me thinking now. I’ve had a half dozen FTFs in my SP-01 in the last few weeks - normally an unstoppable gun - and had a nasty FTRB jam in my Springer 9mm 1911. That one locked up the gun so bad I had to beat it open on a plastic barrel - thank God I got rid of the FLGR! - with a live round in it. Good times.
I attributed that to a mag problem as the rounds were creeping forward in the mag and I figured it just got nosed up and slammed in crossways. I’m going to find my calipers and check OAL now. And try going back to UMC. Unfortunately only a few WalMarts around here stock UMC but they all have WWB.
Joe
Comment by Joe Allen — March 24, 2008 @ 9:45 am
Yeah, I was talking to Dr. Strangegun last night and he reported lots of QC issues with WWB as well. I’m hoping that the Blazer Brass I just ordered is reliable.
Comment by TD — March 24, 2008 @ 9:20 pm
I was shooting a lot of Blazer Brass in .45 and had good results with it, but I’m saving brass in preparation for starting up reloading and was advised that the brass CCI uses is not the best for reloading.
Unfortunately I just bought 800 rounds of WWB 9mm which will probably take me till BAG day to burn up just shooting matches. Maybe I’ll go ahead a buy a half case of UMC and throw the WWB in with the Zombie Apocalypse supplies.
Good Lord, you shure do use a lot of acronyms talking about guns, don’t you?
Joe
Comment by Joe Allen — March 24, 2008 @ 10:49 pm
No, keep using WWB. Malfunction drills are (or at least should be) an essential part of self defense training. WWB ammo provides a great opportunity to practice returning your sidearm to a serviceable state.
Just don’t use that crap anywhere but at the range.
Comment by Konall — March 26, 2008 @ 12:11 am
Now, WWB issues aside, we’ve seen at least some issues with *all* the inexpensive range ammo.
A few nights ago, our range springfield XD9 hung up, badly. Depth gauge indicated the round in the chamber was unfired, the striker was discharged, but the slide was hung up so badly you couldn’t beat it out of battery. Finally I looked at how it was malf’ing, tensioned the slide back one-handed with the barrel pointed in a safe direction and my hand out of the way, and popped the top of the chamber with the plastic end of a screwdriver, and she opened right up.
It was a rem UMC 9×19 cartridge that had about a millimeter too much case length, it had apparently missed the last trimming step.
Comment by drstrangegun — March 26, 2008 @ 8:07 am
[...] last time I mentioned the piece it was choking on Winchester White Box ammo after developing a record of 100% reliability with Remington UMC and Speer Gold Dots. This was, [...]
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