WCC headstamp 9mm

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Boho

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I just got a 27 lb box of 9mm brass from a police range. There were a bunch of WCC head stamps with the years 1986 & 1987. These did not have a crimp and do not look swaged. Did WCC also make law enforcement ammo without a crimp on the primer? There was also some marked WCC 9mm Luger. Anyone familiar with this?
 
I had a few WCC headstamped 9mm cases from Winchester branded ammo. I believe (but don't hold me to it, this is the internet so facts run fast and loose) that WCC stands for Winchester Cartridge Company. I thought they were the same as the "WIN" headstamped 9mm cases that I have scads of until I weighed them. The WCC cases weighed more than the WIN and since I didn't have enough of the WCC cases to make a separate batch I just tossed them. They are perfectly fine for reloading though. I like to separate my cases by headstamp but some people don't bother with pistol cases. Myself, I would consider WCC and WIN to be separate headstamps.
 
WCC is Western Cartridge Corp and is generally military procured ammo but in the past few years Winchester Western (Olin Corp) has been marketing this same ammo commercially. Some of it is crimped primer but not all. I'd probably go thru most of it just to be sure there are NO crimped primers.

Or you could try to prime all of it and see if you have any difficult to prime brass. That would be faster for sure and no harm done as long as you're not standing on the press handle.

IMO WCC is some of the best brass out there. Excellent to reload, and even if it's crimped primer, you only have to swage once and it's good for 50+ reloads or until it gets lost in the grass which is my biggest cause of loss.
 
I have a few 9mm show up every now and again at my local range. They aren't crimped and don't have the NATO symbol. (circled +) The brass is close to the same as WIN brass.--my preferred brass for 9mm.

I also use the WCC NATO crimped brass after they're reamed. The NATO brass is heavier/stiffer on the handle pull.
 
WCC is Western Cartridge Company. Most WCC head stamp ammunition was made under contract. My guess is that if the contract specification called for a crimp there was a crimp and if not, then no crimp. I read somewhere about WCC ammunition made for the US Navy being made without a crimp so I would guess it isn't unusual to see WCC 9mm sans a crimp depending on the contract it was made for. That being my pure guess anyway.

Ron
 
"Winchester" is Olin Corp.
"Win" is Olin Corp.
"WCC" is the Winchester Cartridge Company (Olin)
"W-W" is Winchester Western (Olin)
"Western" is the Western Cartridge Company (Olin)

W is the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.
WRA is the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.

I have used a lot of WCC brass and none of it had a crimp although I hear the newer stuff does have a crimped primer.
 
There is so much of the WCC crimped around here at ranges that its not even funny! I use to think that it had to be the military guys helping themselves to it at the base but there is just way too much of it for it to be that. No idea where its all coming from. I get a lot of it. Probably 15% of my 9mm is WCC nato.
I know a few reloaders that sort it out and toss it, I set it aside and hand prime it with CCI's which will slip right in with just a little more "tightness" than S&B. Once its been decapped, primed, fired, decapped again, it will be good to go from then on. First time is the challenge.
It would be nice to say that I can hold onto it after that, but after matches all the brass is divided up so you never really know who's brass you are getting. So you start over.
Its good brass, but none of whats made today is as good as what I loaded in the 80's. All the brass you came across then was either Win, Fed, RP, or PMC. It was all uniform and gave no issues. Now there is so much imported crap with less copper and way more zinc and even Berdan primed! yeah we are complaining about crimped primers, wait till you run across a bunch of nice shiny nickel brass with Berdan Primers! Sorting brass is now way more than just looking for cracks now!
 
I've seen WCC headstamps quite a bit recently in WWB from Walmart. Sometimes crimped - sometimes not.

What's also aggravating is that I used to look for that stamp to cull, but now some of the regular "Win" commercial headstamped brass I'm finding with crimped primers.

Basically, if its "WCC" or "Win" it could be one or the other. My guess is that they're running at such capacity that some of the machines that stamp and/or crimp the stuff isn't getting adjusted between batches so you get "mixed" features.
 
I just this morning loaded some WCC brass in 9mm, after swaging the primer pockets, to make sure the primers would seat ok. Naturally they did. As was previously mentioned they are a bit heavier, therefore I would think they should last a little bit longer using just plinking loads. I've got well over 250 cases and I have already deprimed, and swaged the primer pocket on them.
 
I've loaded WCC headstamps in 9mm, .38 spl ,.357 mag and .45 ACP. Never had any problems. The .38 spl WCC brass I have is probably 30+ years old. Still works.
 
All of the factory 9mm WCC crimped stuff I have has been the 124 grain "NATO" marked boxes. I bough cases of it years before I reloaded or realized what a crimped primer pocket was. At the time it was the cheapest brass 124gr ammo I could find.
 
First, although the initials WCC do stand for Western Cartridge Company in the commercial world, it was the government designator assigned to ammunition produced at the East Alton, Illinois plant. Initially this was the site of Western Cartridge Company but the Winchester ammunition production moved from New Haven, Connecticut to East Alton around 1958. Winchester had gone bankrupt in 1931 and was bought by the Olin who also owned Western Cartridge Company. Under Olin, initially Winchester was a subsidiary of Western. So Winchester and Western merged their production lines at East Alton about 1989 and everything was Winchester thereafter. Winchester is now moving their plant to Oxford, Mississippi, and it appears that the government assigned WMA to its ammunition produced at the Oxford plant. Production of 9mm ammo with the WMA non-NATO headstamp began in 2012 and both WCC and WMA NATO headstamps were produced in 2013. I've also read on other forums that there is a WMA 13 headstamped 40 S&W, but I haven't seen it.
Anyway, to muddy the identification even more, Winchester produced the Q-line of ammunition starting in 1983. This ammo apparently was produced for the survivalist crowd and was headstamped WCC over the years 1983 through 1989 (note the 19). This production was commercial and not for the government. It was produced in 9mm Luger, 38 Special, and 45 Auto at least; and I've heard 30 Carbine and 223 also, but I haven't seen the later.
AND to mess things up even more, variations of the WCC headstamp were produced for Winchester by Israel's IMI (W (dot) C (dot) C) over 01, 02, and 03 at least; and South Korea's PMC ((dot) W C C (dot)) over 0 (dot) 8 and 0 (dot) 9, at least.
So, if you have the WCC 1987-headstamped 9mm Luger, it was Winchester commercial production with no crimp. If you have (+) WCC 12 9mm Luger cases, it was produced for the government with the crimp, however reject and overrun cases show up in Winchester White boxes both crimped and uncrimped.
By the way, I'm an ammunition collector and this is pretty well known among us, except for the WMA designator, which is the subject of some differences of opinion.
 
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