Winchester vs Federal ammo..

Since this forum doesn't appear to be to active I'll give you the Readers Digest version.. Several tests at 25, 50 and 100 yards, Savage Mark II ( no accutrigger ) GXP with a Tasco factory supplied scope from a bench using only a bipod. Winchester Super X lead rn 40 grain printed around a dime at 25, a nickel at 50 and 4 to 5 inches at 100 with occasional flyers. Bullet drop was a tad over 7 inches approx since I was aiming higher than any red lines..
Federal HP copper clad ( unknown grain ) printed a nickel at 25, 2 to 3 inches at 50 and missed a 14 by 17 inch target numerous times at 100 yards, no discernable grouping. I have no idea what the drop was because of the lack of grouping wasn't able to be ascertained. Guess I need an old B-27 police target.

This was repeated several times and the results were remarkably the same. A clear winner for Super X at least for this rifle and this batch of bullets. And note, Federal was always my choice if any were available. Anyone had similar results ?

I've had problems with Winchester ammo on several occasions so I dont buy it often, but I do like their centerfire rifle brass.
I had to send back a brick of the 555s in .22LR because of a whole bunch of duds, and I had a couple of boxes of the white box in 9MM that were from the same lot that would keyhole at 15 yards and were all over the place from my Glock.
Winchester has been nice about it and will send a shipping label and take it back, they never do respond as to exactly what was wrong with the product and they give you a " Ammo Voucher" that only a few retailers will accept. And they still look at you cross eyed when you try to redeem it.

I have never had a problem with Federal ammo in any caliber.
My preferred .22LR ammo Is CCI.
The mini magnums and stingers always seem to go bang, fly right and hit hard.

The Super X are the only Winchester ammo I've tried.. I wish Federal has given me the same opportunity to send back the batch I had multiple issues with. Its just hard for me to accept all those duds out of one box. I never even informed them of the lousy groupings. By box I mean the bulk packs.. Had Federal offered that I would have given them another shot or two.. As of now, they are a no no for me. CS was a joke from Federal. I wish they had recorded at that time and listened to it later. Glad you at least got satisfaction from Winchester..

CCI's are one of the next brands I have and will try as well as Browning and Remington. Many years ago the Golden bullets had way too much wax on them and jammed occasionally. After wiping them down a bit the results were much improved.. I'm not surprised that different brands give different results, just in the vastly different group sizes. A little different ok, a big difference is not Ok.

I had a lot of trouble getting the Remington golden bullets to run right in a couple of Ruger rifles and a Mk2 handgun quite a few years ago. I bought a couple of bulk pack "new and improved" golden bullets within the last couple of years because of the 22LR "shortage" and they seem to run just fine and I haven't had any more problems out of them.
I bought a brick of some Aguila Super Maximum over a decade ago and had some issues with bullet lube or wax of some sort building up in the little extractor recess after a couple of boxes. Those puppys will sure put a rise in a .22LR muzzle though and smell like cordite when they are fired. Super hot rounds for sure and they shoot very flat with very little drop out to 100. I've still got some left. They dont slow my rifles down until after a hundred or more so they are great for whacking small game. You might want to give em a try just for giggles.

Really surprised Federal didn't send out a shipping label to get the ammo back and look into your problems with their product.

To be fair I did let Winchester know that I had tried the defective ammo in multiple firearms and double struck a couple of the duds to no avail.

If you have any Golden bullets left you may want to try wiping some of the wax off them. Mine were ridiculously wax laden so I wasn't surprised when they repeatedly malfunctioned. When I see a box of the Aquila Super's I'll buy a box and see what happens. I do have some hotter CCI's that I haven't shot yet. Most folks seem to agree they go bang better than most brands but some have mixed opinions as far as accuracy when they get into the hotter loads. I'm also curious about the Browning ( slightly hotter than regular loads ) I got last year but didn't have a chance to shoot yet.

I too was puzzled that Federal didn't offer to at least examine the shells I had if for no other reason liability issues. I did give them lot numbers of the boxes but had to suggest it to them before they even took down the numbers ( if in fact they wrote them down ) Sometimes different CS reps vary greatly in their interaction with customers. I too had several 22 pistols I tried them in on the same day, same weather conditions with the same results. Even didn't work in the Marlin SB rifle I took along which normally digests most anything. They didn't even function correctly in my Ruger SR-22 which supposedly works with anything. Of course the shells have to go bang first which many did not. When they did they were FTF and FTE on several more. And I actually heard the difference in the report of the shells indicating probable different velocities. Strange...


As I've said, this Savage has put the fun back in shooting. Shoot more, pay less, and not enough recoil to bother even the most tender shoulder. Tough to beat that combination. And at the price I paid minus the rebate it was one of those even if I don't need it I'm buying it type deals.. Add in the Tasco straight 4x scope and rings actually seems to be working pretty well and it becomes one of those no brainers.