Why is it so expensive? Every retailer, locally, sells it for $9+. Online I've never seen it cheaper than $8.50. IMI is cheaper, AE XM193 is cheaper, PMC X-Tac is cheaper, Wolf is cheaper. And from what I've found so far, all of them are better performing than Winchester. Who the heck buys that stuff?

It can be found online for $7.xx online a box or .32-.33 a case easily.
Ammograb]Ammograb
Ammunotion Supply

That's ~$0.37 shipped. And still, 2/3s of sellers are charging $0.40+ before shipping.
I guess I'm not seeing what I'm seeing.

I like White Box ammo, the Q3131. You can pick it up at SGAmmo for $7.00 and change. Just bought some last week.

Good question.  Winchester white box is typically just awful in just about every aspect, regardless of caliber.  Dirty, abysmal precision, etc.  I bought a half case many years ago when there was a bunch of hype for Q3131 on this site.  I still have a good portion of it - soot aside, the precision (or lack thereof) of the ammo is SO bad that its not even worth shooting.  These days, I use it primarily for fouling shots in my target rifles.

There was some bad Q3131 10-15 years ago.  Otherwise it is pretty standard performing M193.  When I buy ammo I'll get any of the stuff with a good reputation, price decides the brand.  Wolf Gold, PPU, Winchester, IMI, Federal are the only brands I can think of at the moment that are available new and are good.   If I am shooting for tight groups I use MK262, which falls into the other end of the price scale.

Yeah no shit! Back in 2002 I had a bolt action .223 and just wanted some plinking rounds to shoot and reload the brass.  Bass Pro had Q3131A for $2.88 a box and WWB .223 in commercial brass for $7.88 a box.

I asked the clerk if they had any in stock, and he said yeah, but if you want a bunch you will have to go up on Kearney Street to the warehouse to pick it up. I said yeah I want a bunch! 200 rounds!

He was like, "Oh! I have that right here in the back, I meant if you wanted a few thousand you would have to go to the warehouse."

I was like, "Who could possibly want thousands of .223 shells?"

You have to understand I came from a hunting family, so the thought of buying ANYTHING FMJ was frowned upon because you couldn't hunt with them legally, so I was buying them mostly for the brass to reload.

When you bought a new gun the first thing anyone asked you was, "What are you going to hunt with THAT?"

Then a few years later I bought one of those icky black rifles and shot up that ammo in about an hour.  Kinda wished I had bought a few thousand at that point.

According to my notes the WWB you want to avoid is 1999 Q3131.

I have about 1,000 rounds of this brass.  What was the problem with it?

 
Wish we could turn back time......to the ammo days

Oh, i loved that stuff even though some of the ammo in the bulk boxes looked like crap. Multiple head stamps and some bent or beat up rounds , but it was cheap and most went bang.

I always thought it was Izzy stuff as it was multiple head stamps and you could see pin indentations on the primers of some of it. I think they stopped selling back in 2006ish.