Am I Crazy? Or are some new grease fittings smaller?

I bought an assortment of grease fittings from Tractor Supply a couple of months ago to replace fittings on my old machinery.

The thing is, I've had terrible luck with them.

I should tell you here that I bought a new tip for my grease gun today; and I'm going to try that tonight, when I get a chance.

The last straw was last night. I pulled the knife from my haybine. It's a Hesston, and it has what looks like a cross between a tie-rod end and a ball joint on the end of it. The old grease fitting was broken off. I extracted it and put in a new one.

This is not a very tight grease joint. I sprayed penetrating oil into the old fitting's port and moved the ball around to the point where penetrating oil was leaking out past the grease slots. So I'm CERTAIN that there was room for grease in this joint.

I put the new fitting on, and I couldn't get grease into it to save my life.

I visually compared the bulb on the new grease fitting to one on an old one somewhere else on my haybine.

It just seems like the bulb on these new fittings is smaller, compared to old ones. I don't really get that satisfying "click" when I pop my grease gun on them.

I've had the same issue on my baler with these new fittings. I have to push the tip of my grease gun for all I'm worth to get them to take grease.

Meanwhile, I have some old fittings right next to them that take grease like a champ.

I don't know...maybe my tip on my grease gun is worn, but these new fittings just look smaller to me.

As far as I know they are all standard size.

Chances are someone in China set their machine up wrong and ran a few million of them, hoping they wouldn't be noticed.

Any way of measuring them? I checked some in my assortment, they measured .255-.260 on the major diameter of the ball.

Thanks for the measurement. I have a caliper at home. I'll measure some tonight.

OK...three things

1. My problem was the grease gun end. I bought a new 10,000 PSI four jaw tip; and it pushed grease into my new fitting no problems.

2. The new fittings, at their largest point, are about the same size as the old ones.

3. BUT! The old fittings have an almost spherical bulb of that diameter, whereas the new fittings quickly taper almost conically from that large diameter. There's less meat there to seal overall.

Took a picture of the new one that I put in the sickle bar next to an old one in the sickle drive carriage below. A little fuzzy, it was hard to hold the carriage there with one hand and take the picture with the other.

I've noticed the same thing with the new ones.