Winchester 333 Round 22lr

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bjb4242

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Went to the range yesterday with a 333 round box of Winchester 22 lr ammo. This is copper plated hollow point 36 grain ammo.

I was shooting it out of my M&P 15-22, and a Marlin 795.

This was a very bad batch of ammo. There were about 4 rounds that had no bullet or powder; there was also no powder residue in the box. One round had a horribly deformed bullet. Also had about 4 duds that would not fire.

The Marlin 795 malfunctioned almost every time I reloaded the mag. A huge number of failure to feed, and failure to extract. This rifle has been extremely reliable before.

The 15-22 performed much better, but it also had about 3 failures to feed. This rifle has never malfunctioned before.

It seems like I got a bad box of ammo, and that the 15-22 was more tolerant of bad ammo than the 795. I'm sure that they are pushing as much ammo out the door as possible, and QC is suffering.

Anyone else have a problem with this ammo? I have shot this stuff before, with no problems. In fact, another box of this same ammo went thru my 15-22 without a single failure about a month ago.
 
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Contact Winchester via email and letter, referencing the lot number-
explaing the problems that you have had and ask them to replace the ammunition with a new 333 box. Save the box that you have with the remaining rounds and sales receipt -- in case they want it. They should pay for all shipping charges. Normally, their quality control folks will want to figure out what happened and replace your ammo -- ammunition companies do not like these type of events to occur and if the ammo is a bad lot, they will want to know -- be tactful in your email and letter -- companies want customer support and good relations with the public that uses their ammo -- give them a chance to do the right thing. Good luck and hope things work out.
 
Quality is not proportionate to cost

MichiganScott said:
Please note that there is a reason the bulk boxes cost less per round than Eley Tenex.
Click to expand...

Just because it costs less does not excuse missing bullets and powder. On the other hand, higher cost does not necessarily mean higher quality. (For example, look up the failure rates of high end appliances such as Sub Zero compared to lower priced brands like Frigidaire or Whirlpool)
 
Blazer has jumped forward with quality .22 ammo in the last few years. Thunderbolts and Winchester Wildcats were the worst I've ever encountered. Minimags and Blazers are the majority of my "stores". I've tried some top-end ammo and would rather have the Standard Plus(in the gold box) made in GMBH for @ $35 per 500 last I bought it. Of course, it is long gone now. I still have some though. I'd follow CJag's advice concerning the ammo.......
 
MaxSheridan said:
Just because it costs less does not excuse missing bullets and powder. On the other hand, higher cost does not necessarily mean higher quality. (For example, look up the failure rates of high end appliances such as Sub Zero compared to lower priced brands like Frigidaire or Whirlpool)
Click to expand...

Agreed, but it's much more likely to happen if it's not hand inspected at every stage of the process and it's kicked out of the machines like water from a garden hose and then boxed by weight instead of by hand. You may have 333 cartridges and spare parts. The bar simply is not set very high for the bulk ammo.

You can have perfect or you can have cheap. You just can't have perfect and cheap.
 
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Sprefix said:
Blazer has jumped forward with quality .22 ammo in the last few years. Thunderbolts and Winchester Wildcats were the worst I've ever encountered. Minimags and Blazers are the majority of my "stores". I've tried some top-end ammo and would rather have the Standard Plus(in the gold box) made in GMBH for @ $35 per 500 last I bought it. Of course, it is long gone now. I still have some though. I'd follow CJag's advice concerning the ammo.......
Click to expand...

I've not bought any of the Winchester 333 and have no experience with it. Blazer has consistently given good results in my 18-3. The same is true of Mini-Mags. Federal Auto-Match is extremely good and as well leaves little fouling. In my 77/22 I've had similar results with the above brands of ammunition. And surprisingly I have had good results w/ Remington Thunderbolts.
 
Unfortunately I did not keep the box.

I agree that when buying bulk ammo you shouldn't have high expectations. I only buy bulk 22 ammo, but I've never encountered anything this bad before. I have shot the Winchester 333 round box before, with no problems.

Before this experience, the only other bad 22 ammo that I experienced was Remmington Thunderbolt.
 
I had a bad experience with Win 333 ammo. I had trouble with it FTF in my son's 1522. He used it in his davy cricket for squirrel hunting. He pulled the trigger 4 times on one squirrel and it did not fire! He was mad and I was snickering. He put another Winchester bullet in and told me that it probably wouldn't fire. I told him to try it and it fired. He was really mad and I was laughing. Needless to say no Winchester ammo for us. Federal bulk hollow points or CCI's only.
 
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