Winchester Q4318 124 gr Nato round questions

[Clay1]

I ended up build a G19.5 with a comp. Full build details: G19.5, Zev Citidel slide, Zev threaded barrel, Zev comp, Trijicon RM06, Overwatch Precision Tac flat faced trigger, stock striker spring.

I ran over a hundred rounds in a match last night and had 3 striker hits that did not go bang. My thoughts are that I don't have a lot of reps on the weapon, just shy of 500 rounds. It might just need to cleaned and lube, I might need to pull the striker assembly and clean the striker channel.

Do you lube your striker channel or leave it dry?

Then again it could be hard primers?

While we are at this question on this ammo, do these NATO rounds offer any special considerations as far as reloading? I'm a reloader, but have 5 gallon pal after 5 gallon pal of brass. Is this worth keeping as reloading brass or is it better to just leave it at the range because the NATO round has a different kind of crimp?

I have 3000 rounds of this stuff since it runs the comp well and I'm happy with the accuracy.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

[ranger]

I have not run across any crimped 9mm brass in a while. You can normally look at a primer and see the crimp is it has it.

[Sigfan26]

Never. Ever. Evereverevereverever. Put lube in the striker channel. The striker cups are plastic and are contacting plastic. Never put oil in the purge hole, don’t lubriate the striker or FPS. Follow the Glock lubrication recommendations.


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[Rick R]

The Q4318 cartridge has a slight primer crimp. About 80% will let you insert a primer without problem, that other 20% will have you leaving the reloading shed for Mexican and margaritas. It’s great brass if you take the time to run it thru a decrimping operation of some sort. It’s probably the equal to Starline for accuracy, I don’t know if it’s as durable because I’m too old to spend much time searching for spent 9mm brass at the range. I still use a single stage press and am just reloading to be doing something, if I want quantity I go buy another case of loaded ammo.

I have shot Q4318 in a bunch of different pistols without the first problem. Does your pistol have a reduced power striker spring?

[Lester Polfus]

1) Don't lube your striker channel.

2) Take all the aftermarket fire control parts out of your Glock.

3) During The Panic, I ordered enough Q4138 I really thought the UPS guy was going to call me in on some kind of anonymous tip line. I've had zero issues with it.

4) Can you really save money loading 9mm unless you have a pretty high speed Dillon press?

[revchuck38]

I've gone through a couple of cases of this ammo and I like it. It does have pretty hard primers, though. The only striker-fired 9x19 gun I have is a stock (except for sights) Walther P99C and it is 100% with this ammo. I've had light strikes using an 11 lb. hammer spring (the lightest available) in a PX4, but going to a 12 lb. spring fixed that.

The brass is good for reloading once the primer crimp is removed. IMO it's much better quality than WWB brass.

[GOTURBACK]

I am running through a 500 round case of Winchester NATO 124 myself and had three failure to fire in my USP FS last night.

[HCM]

I am running through a 500 round case of Winchester NATO 124 myself and had three failure to fire in my USP FS last night.

Winchester’s QC has been spotty for several years compared to Speer and federal.

Several years ago my Agency has to designate several hundred thousand rounds of 147 grain Ranger 9mm Duty Ammo as “training only” ammo after multiple failures to fire in stock Glocks.

[Wake27]

I had a few within the last few months. It’s not isolated so I switched to Lawman 124.


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[Lester Polfus]

Hmmm...

Since Gmail keeps everything, I was able to ascertain I bought that ammo in 2009.

Boy time flies.

Since then I've had more than a couple issues with Winchester ammo.

So belay my last.

The ammo may be the problem.

I'm almost to the bottom of it, so it's time to make the UPS guy suspicious again. Guess I'll cross Q4138 off the list.

[Darth_Uno]

I bought a case a while back and had multiple FTFires across several Glocks. I just wrote it off as hard primers. Went back to Fiocchi and haven’t had any problems.

No, don’t lube your striker channel.

[Clay1]

Thanks everyone for the comments. It's nice to know that it's not me. It's a relatively new gun. I'm going to give her a good scrubbing. At club level matches, it's a bonus as far as a failure drill practice session :o

I'll check into the Lawman rounds. I need something relatively hot to run the comp.

Note: I have NO reduced power striker spring in this firearm or any other firearm that I own. The striker assembly is stock.

[S Jenks]

When my PD switched to Gen4 Glock 17s a few years ago we had a number of Winchester NATO rounds that would not fully seat in the chamber. This happened during our break in/transition training. Switching to Speer Lawman solved the issue.

I took a few of those rounds and they fed fine in a P226. I never measured the case length so I’m not really much help.

[TGS]

Interesting.

We used Winchester Ranger NATO 124gr as our practice ball ammo for the last who-knows-however many years. I’ve shot thousands of rounds of it (maybe up to 10,000) without any issue, although the cases were very dirty.

Over the last year or so they started issuing us military M882 for practice. I’m wondering if the switch is coincidental to failing standards by Winchester....

[revchuck38]

Interesting.

We used Winchester Ranger NATO 124gr as our practice ball ammo for the last who-knows-however many years. I’ve shot thousands of rounds of it (maybe up to 10,000) without any issue, although the cases were very dirty.

Over the last year or so they started issuing us military M882 for practice. I’m wondering if the switch is coincidental to failing standards by Winchester....

Maybe, or it might be because the military is switching to the new training rounds and the Gummint is passing the remaining M882 to civilian LE agencies at a good price.

[OlongJohnson]

I only buy Winchester 9mm cases with the expectation of case geometry being out of spec, in order to test the robustness of various pistols to out of spec cases. Or because it's 9 cents/rd when Walmart is going out of handgun ammo business.

[Clay1]

Wanted to do a note on this process. Like I mentioned earlier, I've only run about 500 rounds through this set up. In the past, a few days of training and I would tear down the G34 about every 1000 rounds for a cleaning.

When I pulled the striker out of the channel and cleaned it, it looked like I struck GOLD. There was so much brass shavings in the striker channel that it was shocking. I've cleaned her up, lubed up (except striker channel) and off to the range before the freezing rain / snow tonight.

Hopefully it was just the amount of crap in there and this will alleviate any problems. I will have to keep an eye on this gun and the maintenance schedule. I've always done a thorough cleaning about 1K rounds with other Glocks. This girl might be needy and expect more attention. :p

[TGS]

I only buy Winchester 9mm cases with the expectation of case geometry being out of spec, in order to test the robustness of various pistols to out of spec cases. Or because it's 9 cents/rd when Walmart is going out of handgun ammo business.

Not all ammo lines being equal and all, is the NATO load sold at WalMart or are you referring to WWB?

[GOTURBACK]

it looked like I struck GOLD. There was so much brass shavings in the striker channel that it was shocking.


That was my experience as well alot of brass shavings after only 100 rounds for me in the USP, glad I only have another 100 left of the case.

[GOTURBACK]

I purchased my 500 round case at my local gun shop.

[OlongJohnson]

WWB.

Given my experience in corporate America, a company that will turn out the level of poor quality I've seen in WWB likely doesn't have the fundamentals to prevent quality issues in the same basic product just because the label on the box is different. Especially when it's all coming from the same plant. My understanding is that Olin is in the process of taking over management of Lake City currently, but I'd expect that any product under discussion has all come from the Oxford, MS plant for the past 4-5 years at least.

[TGS]

WWB.

Given my experience in corporate America, a company that will turn out the level of poor quality I've seen in WWB likely doesn't have the fundamentals to prevent quality issues in the same basic product just because the label on the box is different.

I think that's an erroneous take on ammunition companies (and actually most manufacturing in the gun industry), especially when talking about products marketed for different purposes and mixing in contract specification vs non-contract ammo. WWB != Ranger-T, Federal Champ != Federal HST, and CCI Blazer != CCI Speer Gold Dot.

The thread is about Winchester Q4318, and discussion of ammo in that context should be limited to Q4318, instead of referencing other lines of ammo as if they're the same thing.

[Joe Mac]

In the last few years I've gone through about 5000 rounds of Q4318. I get Lawman 124 at work, and I supplement it with Q4318 so that a good chunk of my practice is with a round that feels pretty much like my 124+P carry ammo.

I've had zero problems with the Winchester stuff; it's been clean, reliable, and accurate. I will soon retire from the PD (losing my Lawman supply), and my state may soon crush our spirits with CA-style ammo legislation. I just bought two cases of Q4318 in ammo cans, and I'm thinking of buying a LOT more -- perhaps a 5-year supply of it for training. My biggest hesitation is where the hell I'm going to store it all... :D

[spence]

I've shot a relatively minimal amount of the 4318, and have been absolutely happy with it. If the price was right, I'd buy it all the time.


Winchester’s QC has been spotty for several years compared to Speer and federal.

Several years ago my Agency has to designate several hundred thousand rounds of 147 grain Ranger 9mm Duty Ammo as “training only” ammo after multiple failures to fire in stock Glocks.

In the 12-13k rounds of 9mm I've run in the last 8-9 months, the only real issue I've had has been with Federal. I realize it's nowhere near the top of the pack in terms of quality, but I bought a couple cases of the black pack when it was on rebate, and in the 1500 or so rounds of the stuff I've shot through both of my 92's, I've had numerous failures to extract. At first I thought maybe it was just the compact and having recently had the slide finished, but when the M9 started in on it, too.