Winchester .45ACP Brass

[giggitygiggity]

I loaded up some .45ACP yesterday and the day before and noticed that I had trouble seating the primers into the Winchester brass. I was using Wolf primers. The other brass (mostly Federal) worked well. Does Winchester put crimps on their primers or do they just have slightly smaller pockets or is the issue with the actual primers? Thanks.

 

[JDGray]

Never had issues with Win brass, is my prefered brass for 45. Now S&B has some tight pockets!

 

[Blue68f100]

Now check to make sure you have SP or LP primer pockets. Most of the Fed I find is SP where all of Win is LP. So you will need to separate the brass according to primer pocket size.

Wolf primers seam to run on the large side and can be hard to seat. I have not had any problem with their LP when it comes to seating. The only time I see primers crimped is for Mil ammo. You may take a case or 2 and break the edge on the primer pocket and see if that helps.

 

[Walkalong]

Some say the Wolf primers are a bit tight in some brass, but I have never used any of mine yet.

 

[Canuck-IL]

Wolf and Tula primers, in all sizes, tend to be a tight fit - they run a hair larger than all other brands with CCI usually being the next tightest. Not for use in S&B brass which tends to have undersize pockets - other than that, just a little more exertion to seat them properly.

One advantage - when pockets start to get a little loose, as Federal rifle rounds do rather early, you can get another use or 2 out of them with the larger diam primers.
/Bryan

 

[918v]

There's two kinds of Win 45 ACP brass. Their european import brass, used in Wally World WWB ammo, is dimensionally different.

 

[Hondo 60]

Not surprised that you had a tight fit.
But those Wolf primers all go bang & they're cheaper than any other brand.

 

[Canuck-IL]

...those Wolf primers all go bang & they're cheaper than any other brand.

They're also very consistent ... I and a lot of others using them for HP get the lowest ES/SD with Wolf.

/B

 

[1KPerDay]

There's two kinds of Win 45 ACP brass. Their european import brass, used in Wally World WWB ammo, is dimensionally different.

 

[pandc]

I always use Winchester primer in all my loads ( 9mm, 45ACP, 38SP and 7.62x54R )
They seat well and always go bang. Winchester brass is the easiest to seat primers into also. S& B brass is very tight. Winchester is the preferred brass in my house.

 

[918v]

1K,

The brass from the Czech made WWB 45 ammo sold at Walmart is different from the US made brass. It is obvious to anyone, including the blind.

 

[1KPerDay]

So what are the different dimensions?

 

[BWB]

I have noticed the same thing with SOME Winchester 9mm brass. This is mixed range pick-up, so I can't verify the source other than the normal (non-military) headstamp. The pockets are not obviously crimped, but the mouths are virtually square and primer seating with Win SP's is a gamble. I cull it when I find it. The problem is real.

 

[giggitygiggity]

It is LP brass. I've seated some, but not without a considerable amount of muscle being applied to my press. After a while I got fed up and used my military crimp remover and cut away some of the primer pocket. Hopefully that takes care of things.

 

[Deavis]

It is obvious to anyone, including the blind.

Care to place money on that? I'm sure they could hear your sarcasm but not tell the difference in the brass headstamp unless theyc an read inverted "braille"

In my experience, Wolf primers are difficult to seat in most brass and Winchester generally have tighter pockets that most. If you were to measure the seating depth of a primer with a set seating depth (non-hand tool) you would wsee for the same exact depth setting that Winchester would measure 0.0015", Speer 0.007", and R-P 0.004". That is a very consistent delta that I've measured, so it doesn't surprise me that you feel the Wolf primers are hard to seat in WW brass.

 

[noylj]

You can chamfer the mouth of the primer pocket.
I would hope that the OP could tell a SP primer pocket from a LP primer pocket.
Have no idea where the idea of European Import brass came from.
There is a Fed/CCI factory that makes up contract rounds (WalMart is one contract). In this plant, so "the story" goes, the only large pistol primer used is .45ACP.
By switching to small primer pockets, they save the cost of retooling and have more flexibility in plant production.
As any reloader with a progressive knows, a primer size switch-over is the longest part of a caliber conversion and many have two presses just to eliminate this activity.

 

[918v]

So what are the different dimensions?

They are .002"-.003" bigger in diameter at the casehead and not really compatible with 45 ACP dies. I bet they have primer pocket issues as well. I tossed them after trying to resize. What a pain in the rear.

 

[Canuck-IL]

The brass from the Czech made WWB 45 ammo sold at Walmart is different from the US made brass. It is obvious to anyone, including the blind.

Care to place money on that? I'm sure they could hear your sarcasm but not tell the difference in the brass headstamp unless theyc an read inverted "braille"

With no need for sarcasm, you can pretty clearly see a "dot" directly before and after the word Wincheter on the stamp. Poster says they are Czech contract ... I had heard that they were an S&B contract about 6 years ago.

No idea which, if either, source is correct. I do know they prime with the feel of S&B tight pockets - a little more effort to insert US primers, not really worth trying with Wolf.
/B

 

[One78Shovel]

Now check to make sure you have SP or LP primer pockets. Most of the Fed I find is SP where all of Win is LP. So you will need to separate the brass according to primer pocket size.

Really? I must be real lucky as I have loaded very many cases of mixed brass in 45ACP using only LP. Can't imagine there has been no Federal in those batches.

This is on my list first thing this morning to look at my stash.

Thanks

-178S

 

[mstreddy]

Yes, Fed small primers

178S, Really? I must be real lucky as I have loaded very many cases of mixed brass in 45ACP using only LP. Can't imagine there has been no Federal in those batches.

Yep, Federal is loading .45 ACP with small pistol primers, at least in the American Eagle boxes. There are some other head stamps doing this as well, but can't recall any at the moment. All of the the "new" Fed I have been picking up at the range I frequent has been SPP, they sell lots of Fed Am Eagle. So, now I have to make sure I go through all the .45 brass to sort out the SPP. There has been lots of discussion in some other threads about the SPP in .45 brass.

/Eddy

 

[Deavis]

you can pretty clearly see a "dot" directly before and after the word Wincheter on the stamp.

Great, so tell me, how does a blind person SEE that? I thought being blind meant that one could not see and, as I pointed out, reading a headstamp with your fingers is pretty hard. We're not all as talented as some people on the Internet clearly are.

Are you getting regular Federal brass with SPPs? Typically I see it in their NT version and a few other headstamps but not Federal's normal headstamp.

 

[One78Shovel]

Yep, Federal is loading .45 ACP with small pistol primers, at least in the American Eagle boxes. There are some other head stamps doing this as well, but can't recall any at the moment. All of the the "new" Fed I have been picking up at the range I frequent has been SPP, they sell lots of Fed Am Eagle. So, now I have to make sure I go through all the .45 brass to sort out the SPP. There has been lots of discussion in some other threads about the SPP in .45 brass.

/Eddy

Thanks again for the info. I went and pulled a jug of various 45ACP headstamps and found that at least 10% selected did have the smaller primer. Those inlcuded, WIN NT, Speer, Blazer and some Federal stamped cases. So far I have inspected ~100.

Only have about another 2K to go. :banghead:

-178S

 

[Blue68f100]

If you loading on a progressive these SPP in 45 can stop the train real fast. I set all the SP aside and load them when I do not want or can not pick up the brass. It use to be you could clean the brass and go straight in to the brass feeder and load. Now your forced to cull your brass to remove the SP. Some just load as normal when they feel something is not right they just pull that one brass and continue. In any case it changes your reloading process.

When these showed up on the market a couple of years ago there was a lot of talk about them. I think there are close to 5 head stamps that are currently using the SPP now. Some are only in SD ammo. But with these Fed if you look in the brass, they look brand new, so it is definitely a cleaner burn.

 

[mstreddy]

Fed American Eagle

Are you getting regular Federal brass with SPPs? Typically I see it in their NT version and a few other headstamps but not Federal's normal headstamp.

Deavis,
I'm seeing the SPPs in the Federal American Eagle. I don't think they are branded as Non-Toxic.

And as mentioned by 178S and others, it's on several other mfr headstamps as well.

As mentioned by others, gotta take the extra step in sorting/culling the brass to prevent the priming issues.

/Eddy

 

[john wall]

I cull the dot Winchester brass into the "crap brass" bin to shoot where they may not be picked up. Many of Winchester's offerings are not made by them.

Actually, the SP brass will have lower velocity spread and is capable of better accuracy. The case head is stronger, to boot. Obviously, the downside is sorting them.:banghead:

I load the SP brass for my match 1911's.