Different headstamp

leupold90

Recently bought some Hornady .223 but when I got home and opened box all the rounds were headstamped 'WINCHESTER 223 REM' and not 'HORNADY 223 REM'.

I've never seen this before with Hornady, or any other brand for that matter. I haven't fired any of the rounds yet and am considering bringing the ammunition back to where I got it.

Any body else ever come across this?

Grizzly 45

Look like Hornady is sub contracting their work to Winchester nowadays.Winchester is just concentrating on ammo making nowASFIK,so I'd guess it is still the same tech loads etc,just a different headstamp.

Jonty

Are you sure nobody in the shop swapped the ammo?

Jonty

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Look like Hornady is sub contracting their work to Winchester nowadays.Winchester is just concentrating on ammo making nowASFIK,so I'd guess it is still the same tech loads etc,just a different headstamp.

Do you have a link for this Grizzly?

leupold90

Just found this;

www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=6825208

Tackleberrywho

leupold90 wrote: »

Recently bought some Hornady .223 but when I got home and opened box all the rounds were headstamped 'WINCHESTER 223 REM' and not 'HORNADY 223 REM'.

I've never seen this before with Hornady, or any other brand for that matter. I haven't fired any of the rounds yet and am considering bringing the ammunition back to where I got it.

Any body else ever come across this?

I have Hornady .308 Soft nose Stamped winchester .308!

leupold90

Below is email I received from Hornady.

Yes these are Hornady. We loaded them due to the high demand of our product. We will pruchase winchester cases from time to time. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Thank you

It wasn't me!

I've had Hornady brass stamped "Frontier". Never heard of it except in that case.

Tackleberry.

I bought some 12g shells Reminton and low behold amongest the 24 lovely green shells is a blue shell i taught i'd won some thing like willy wonkers golden ticket it was stamped B&P......

Eo1n8wrd

I'm digging up a right old one here but I'm after getting some 100gr hornady ammunition and it's all headstamped as frontier 243win the lot number on the box (assuming they're sequential) is more than 21000 behind what I had before.

Is it just old stock? and would it be any different in quality to the regular hornady stamped stuff? It's definitely not as shiny :P

I did do a bit of googling but any forum I found mentioning it is about 10 years old.

It wasn't me!

I had a couple of boxes of Hornady stuff before in Frontier-stamped brass. Shot no differently to the normal Hornady-cased stuff for me anyway.

Eo1n8wrd

Cheers, any chance anyone would know how to find a manufacture date from the lot number or off the box? more for curiosities sake as anything I've found has referred to frontier brass as being old stuff.

Eo1n8wrd

nevermind, got it. Heres a paste from some random forum for anyone else interested:

"Beginning in 2004, when the first digit is a 2 the lot is bullets, if 3 it is ammo. The next two digits are the year 04-10/2004-2010. Lots beginning with 02 or 03 probably are 2002 and 2003. No month or day incorporated into the lot number. The actual lot is the final four digits, lower numbers are earlier in the year"

That above puts mine at early 2008.

link to original thread:
http://iaaforum.org/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8597

meathstevie

Never mind how old the ammo is. As long as it's stored properly the shelf life of center fire ammo can easily be expressed in decades rather than years.

Eo1n8wrd

That's kind of what I was thinking.
Have ye ever had boxes of ammo with one or two cartridges having brown marks that look for all the world like little rust spots (I know brass doesn't rust before someone jumps on that one) it's mostly around the headstamp with some having spots up the case and on the neck.

FISMA

Jonty wrote: »

Are you sure nobody in the shop swapped the ammo?

Normally, that's what I would think.

I think that it is awful practice for Hornady to use Winchester's brass. If they believe that Win's brass is good enough for their rounds, why would anyone in the States bother buying brand new Hornady cases for reloading?

Thanks for the heads up OP, I'll check every box from now on.

I wouldn't mind a change in brass when I shoot Rem's green box, but when you pay a premium for the good stuff, don't give me Winchester.

Liam_D

FISMA wrote: »

Normally, that's what I would think.

I think that it is awful practice for Hornady to use Winchester's brass. If they believe that Win's brass is good enough for their rounds, why would anyone in the States bother buying brand new Hornady cases for reloading?

Thanks for the heads up OP, I'll check every box from now on.

I wouldn't mind a change in brass when I shoot Rem's green box, but when you pay a premium for the good stuff, don't give me Winchester.

I not sure where I picked it up but I was always under the impression that Winchester brass was preferable only after Norma and lapua. Bullets are obviously a different kettle of fish.

FISMA

Liam_D wrote: »

I not sure where I picked it up but I was always under the impression that Winchester brass was preferable only after Norma and lapua. Bullets are obviously a different kettle of fish.

I put RWS at the front of the pack, then Lapua, Norma, ...