Winchester 124 gr NATO 9 mm, hard primers?

[Rmiked]

I purchased this ammo and love it in my Beretta 92, using 14# WC hammer spring. My SIG 226 MK 25 is having light primer strikes with the Wolff hammer springs at 17, 18 or 19#. I am going back to factory 21# spring today. Is it a fact that these primers are harder than say normal Winchester white box or REM UMC?

[Prdator]

I purchased this ammo and love it in my Beretta 92, using 14# WC hammer spring. My SIG 226 MK 25 is having light primer strikes with the Wolff hammer springs at 17, 18 or 19#. I am going back to factory 21# spring today. Is it a fact that these primers are harder than say normal Winchester white box or REM UMC?


I have had some REAL problems with Winchester ammo and primers a few years ago a bud and me got 50K of Winchester primers about 15-20 percent of them are bad.. and by bad they will not go off at ALL... and Winchester would not do anything about them. In my Houston class last weekend a student and training junkey was shooting Win ammo and was having about 10% of them were bad and would not go off in a Glock and only a few of them would work in my Beretta 92 Langdon Tactical Custom. So I would avoid Winchester ammo..

[Rmiked]

Well I just reinstalled my factory SIG 21# hammer spring and shot 100 rounds DA only. No issues. I only have ever had light strikes on DA with the Wolff reduced power (17,18,19#) springs in my SIG 226. My Beretta 92A1 ignites them fine with Wilson Combat 14# hammer spring. For some reason the Beretta design seems to have more margin in firing pin force. The SIG has a hammer reset spring that keeps the hammer away from the firing pin in a half- cocked position sort of the the Beretta 92 half-cocked. I’m thinking the SIG setup requires the hammer to overcome that resistance to strike the firing pin. I’m not sure but the Beretta strikes better. The SIG factory hammer spring works great. I’ll stick with it

[BJV]

You said "hard."

I had issues with this ammo in 2016 when using it in a CZ P07 with CGW 18# (yellow) hammer spring, hammer, and extended firing pin. A handful of rounds in a given box of 50 would not ignite, even though there was a typical indentation in the primer.

[shiv]

I have seen Glocks with after-market striker springs have the issue with NATO ammunition. It’s a NATO more than Winchester thing, I believe. Also happens with a few types of European 9mm ammo.


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[Rmiked]

Well I am liking the ammo now with my factory SIG spring in. It is accurate and powerful. As stated earlier, my Beretta 92A1 will ignite anything even with WC 14# hammer spring

[pblanc]

I currently have a Wilson Combat 14 lb mainspring in my Beretta 92 FS. I have shot a good bit of the Winchester NATO and I have not had light strikes, but I have heard or read some complaints regarding hard primers with the NATO loads. I did try a WC 13 lb spring and had light strikes but that was with Russian steel case ammo. As I recall, I did not have ignition issues with the Winchester NATO with the 13 lb spring, but I didn't have it in the pistol too long. My pistol has the Elite II hammer, if that makes a difference one way or the other.

[Rmiked]

Pblanc, good to hear about Beretta 92 with WC 14# spring. I’m not sure why I can drop from the Beretta 20# spring down to the D (16#) spring and even the WC 14# spring and never have light primer strikes. But in my SIG 226, I drop from factory 21# spring down to 19# spring and get light primer strikes (both with NATO ammo, hard primers)? The SIG is fine with factory spring. I just think the Beretta design delivers a better strike? I know the SIG has a hammer reset spring in addition to the firing pin spring , both of which must be overcome to impact firing pin . Maybe that hammer reset spring is fairly strong?

[Darth_Uno]

Bought 1000 rounds of the 124gr NATO and had consistent failures across four different Glocks in one day. Not even light strikes, they looked normal but just didn’t ignite. Before anyone asks, all the Glocks are modified to a degree but I don’t run light striker springs for this exact reason. So I’ve still got appx 600 rounds in the Church Range Day bucket, I’ll let someone else shoot it up. It’s back to 124gr Fiocchi for my regular shooting, which all my Glocks shoot just fine.

[Rmiked]

Bought 1000 rounds of the 124gr NATO and had consistent failures across four different Glocks in one day. Not even light strikes, they looked normal but just didn’t ignite. Before anyone asks, all the Glocks are modified to a degree but I don’t run light striker springs for this exact reason. So I’ve still got appx 600 rounds in the Church Range Day bucket, I’ll let someone else shoot it up. It’s back to 124gr Fiocchi for my regular shooting, which all my Glocks shoot just fine.

Hmm... Is there a feeling out there that this Win NATO may not be reliable? At this point , after about 250 rounds, the only issues I had were in my SIG 226 with Wolff reduced power springs, in DA only. Other than that, it’s all good. No issues in Beretta with 14 # spring and SIG with factory spring

[willie]

I frequently carry a CZ 75 PCR or P01 and long ago elected not to change their very strong hammer springs. Some would say that my pistols are over sprung(?). I would point out that so far I've not had a light strike with either of the two.

[1986s4]

I have some Winchester small rifle primers that I bought for experimentation into the world of major PF ammo for my Colt .38 super. The Colt still has the factory MS and zero issues with ignition. Same for the Beretta 92c and 9mm [which I don't load major]. I plan to get a Wilson #16 MS for the Beretta. The hammer on the Beretta is rather heavy looking.

[Rmiked]

I have some Winchester small rifle primers that I bought for experimentation into the world of major PF ammo for my Colt .38 super. The Colt still has the factory MS and zero issues with ignition. Same for the Beretta 92c and 9mm [which I don't load major]. I plan to get a Wilson #16 MS for the Beretta. The hammer on the Beretta is rather heavy looking.

Regarding your Beretta 92, the 16# D spring from Beretta is 100% reliable and supplied with the newer M9A3 as stock from Beretta. My Wilson Combat 14# chrome silicon hammer spring has been 100% reliable on ignition even with the NATO ammo. Can’t go wrong with either

[Jeep]

I had a real problem with some Winchester 124 gr. NATO about five years ago--several rounds per hundred took multiple restrikes in a non-modified Glock 17 to fire, and had some troubles in other pistols as well.

A SIG 226 with a 19# mainspring should bust all normal western primers. It isn't unusual to have some issues with Russian primers, but I've never had a problem with a 19 pound mainspring and often-tough European primers. If a 226 with a 19# spring isn't busting American primers the odds are overwhelmingly that they are unusually hard (and you might find that the ammo dates back around 5 years or so)

As for Berettas, you should never have a problem with a 16# "D" spring (except for, perhaps, very hard Russian primers), but you might have issues with 14# springs unless you have a new Wilson trigger bar, which sends the hammer further back, thus creating more momentum.

Overall, my bet here is that this is simply bad ammo.

[Backspin]

My agency recently switched to 9mm. We got Winchester white box 147 grain as our practice load. We’ve seen several bad primers as well. Depends on the lot number though. Some lots function well while others seem more problematic.