This area gets more traffic, so I'm posting here. Is Winchester's centerfire ammo any good. Specifically the 124g 9mm FMJ. Their rimfire is garbage that only runs in revolvers and bolt guns in my experience, hence my hesitance.

Is that marked 9mm NATO? I've never had any trouble with it. It seems to be loaded a little hotter. The reason I ask is that the cheap Winchester known as WWB is 115-gr. Some individual pistols don't like WWB because it tends to be weak. There is also a steel case load in a brown box that is even cheaper, but I have no experience with this one.

I don’t care for it at all. I go Speer Lawman 124gr, Federal, American Eagle or Fiocchi in the grain. Winchester is dirty. Speer is my preferred. Runs clean, casings are great, top quality. When you are buying by the case all of it is so close in price there is little difference cost wise. I get all my ammo from SG in Stillwater OK.

quote:

Winchester is dirty.

We used Winchester as our duty ammo for decades. I never found it overly dirty. Don't compare it to the ultra cheap white box.

I've used a ton of the 124 Winchester (because it was free). Never an issue of did I find the need to clean more often.

Reality is any of the top brands are fine. I'd be more concerned about the bullet shape and relievable feeding.

Winchester Q4318 is NATO-spec ammunition and it's a good practice substitute for 124 grain +P hollowpoint loads. NATO 9x19mm is loaded hotter, and Q4318 is nice and warm. Good stuff.

This loading is a world away from the 115 grain fmj "white box" offering from Winchester, which is loaded anemically. You might call it a -P load.
This is also the stuff from where Winchester ammo has gotten the reputation of being dirty.

Thank you all. That's what I was hoping to hear. I'm going to buy a case to try out. I have 2 new 1911s to break in and wanted something a little hotter than AE 115.

At two of the Police Departments I worked for we used Winchester Ammo (9mm and .40) for practice and duty use.

On a whim I bought and used a few boxes of 9mm that was marked NATO to a shooting course. I never saw it before and thought what the heck the agency was paying for it. I thought it shot really clean and had a definite little more zing than the usual WWB.

The White box stuff you find in bulk packs at Walmart is dirtier than your browser history.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfe 21:
This area gets more traffic, so I'm posting here. Is Winchester's centerfire ammo any good. Specifically the 124g 9mm FMJ. Their rimfire is garbage that only runs in revolvers and bolt guns in my experience, hence my hesitance.

If it is the 124gr NATO load white box it seems to work fine for me.

I haven't looked for a while, but Wal-Mart does, or did, sell 9mm NATO in 150-round boxes for around $27. Academy, if you have one near you, sells 9mm NATO for around $13/50. Also, why buy a case right off the bat? Why not 50, 100 rounds to see if you like it first?

Buying from PSA. free shipping for a case or $19 for 5 boxes. My local walmart doesn't carry it or that would probably be the way i go.

NATO spec Winchester 124 is good to go. But I have been getting some really good deals of Fiocchi 124 lately and have had a good experience with it.

You mean this stuff?
Love it! Can you tell?

My experience with Winchester 124 grain NATO 9 mm Luger has been the same as Parabellum's and others. Good, in other words. It is not as hot as most +P Luger ammunition but decidedly hotter than most standard pressure 9x19.

I have shot maybe a couple of thousand rounds of it or so through various pistols and a Ruger pistol caliber carbine. The only issue I ever had with it was with a single round that jammed up my Beretta 92FS about a millimeter out of battery. When I got that round extracted I did the barrel "plunk" test with it and measured it with a caliper and found nothing out of spec or otherwise amiss, so I don't have a clue why it jammed up the pistol. But that is the one and only time that Beretta choked on a round.

I suppose at this point its piling on. But given the above post about a failure I thought it might be worth adding. I've shot so much Q4318 its silly. More than 20K rounds and climbing every month we can shoot outdoors. I have never had a bad round in any gun. I shoot it in pistols and 9mm carbines. It's definitely a bit hotter than the normal range stuff (I shoot the lawman or cleanfire indoors to cut lead exposure) but anything designed for NATO ammo is fine (like all sig Pseries).
Zero risk.

Yup, the NATO marked Winchester is definitely good stuff. So is the non-NATO marked 124gr, which also goes by the Q4318 marking. The Cabela's closest to me regularly had either in stock for $9.99/50ct box, then Bass Pro interceded and that was all she wrote.

I must be one of the few who likes the WWB 100 round boxes from Walmart. I don't find it any dirtier than other generic stuff. Definitely less than UMC. I chronoed it at 1100 fps. Good enough for competition. I tried the 124 grain stuff and it was fine. My preferred bullet weight in 9mm is the 115s. And when it first came out back in the late 90s. $10.58 for 100 rounds? That was a good deal.

Yup you may be the only one in the universe. Yup its cheap, yup it sucks to all accounts. But in any case we are not discussing that. The nato stuff is GTG. the WWB is not.

As with several others, I have had no problems with the 9mm Win 124gr NATO ammo. I find it reliable and definitely hotter than the WWB. In my experience, the WWB 115gr is dirty and weak. I have also find that it shoot to a different point of aim compared to other brands. About the only ammo dirtier is UMC, which someone else mentioned. But the NATO 124gr gets a thumbs up from me.

In stock guns, the 124gr NATO from Winchester is legit. I have over 3k downstairs right now. My MPX loves it.

However - I've had a lightly sprung P228 fail to fire it, and friends have had issues with competition-sorung guns. The primers seem a little stouter than most other commercial offerings.

As others have said, it is a little extra angry, so take care if you're going to shoot it through something vintage in quantity.

If you're buying in bulk to shoot through modern, stock guns, buy with confidence.