Is LC brass with the effort?

Slamfire said:

.........As long as it is not machine gun brass, it is good stuff. Brass fired in a machine gun is swelled so much that even a small base die can't reduce it.

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I heard that too......but you see, before I heard that, I had already bought a 1000 rounds of .762 LC from Wideners. I wasn't going to to just give up and throw it away, so I bought an RCBS small base .308 die set and set out to proof the myth wrong.....and I did!

Below is a picture of 200 rounds of that MG brass sized with the RCBS small base die.....one time. The brass was first wet tumbled. Once sized, it was trimmed...the primer pockets swaged, uniformed, and the flash holes de-flashed. Every piece passes the plunk test in my Wilson .308 gauge, with nary a single glitch.



You may ask...was it as simple as sizing Winchester or other commercial brass?.....or even LC brass shot out of M14's? Not quite. But this is how I got it done:

First, I made beautiful bling after depriming them all.....using a Thumbler's tumbler in water, Dawn, Lemishine, and S.S. pins.

The first attempt to size that pretty stuff was ..... scary. I used wax...Imperial...the same way I've done for years on "normal" brass. I could NOT size the stuff with that. No stuck cases, no pulled apart heads, but that's only because I quit before the point of no return. Did not push one case all the way through....

Attempt 2 was with Lanolin....better...but still it was harder than hell to push it through and I was sure I was stretching the hell out of them bringing the expander out. It took two hand and a lot of weight bearing down. So I tried another way.....

Attempt 3 was old fashioned RCBS lube on a pad! That actually worked fine on the outside.....but the expander was still a problem using a touch of that lube in the necks.

Attempt 4 was the ticket. Again RCBS lube on a pad, and dry white mica powder on the insides of the necks. It's still a little harder to size than commercial, but not bad. I thought how can this be? So I tried imperial one more time....and almost stuck it. Forget that. BTW, the brass from attempts 1,2 and 3 went to the scrap pile. Again....all the brass from Attempt 4 passed the plunk test in the Wilson gauge with ease.

Also BTW.....someone told me about the tried and true STP for sizing tough brass.....it did work, but the RCBS water-based pad lube was way easier to clean up with. STP is too messy for me.

GW Staar said:

I heard that too......but you see, before I heard that, I had already bought a 1000 rounds of .762 LC from Wideners. I wasn't going to to just give up and throw it away, so I bought an RCBS small base .308 die set and set out to proof the myth wrong.....and I did!

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OK, but you are still wrong. Resizing MG fired brass is one thing, having case head separations is quite another. Brass that has been fired in an oversized chamber, or been subject to the violent extraction process of a MG (or other semi-automatic rifle like the M-14) may resize all day long, but you need to be aware of case stretching and the problems it causes.

brasscollector said:

It does seem to hold up better than a lot of other 223 brass.

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+1 I have 3 rifles, but only my AR15s use LC brass.
For me the LC brass is the best I've reloaded.

Bfh_auto said:

My research says 556/223 brass doesn't follow the same lines that 7.62x51 Vs 308 does.
My pmc and LC are filled to the bottom of the case neck by the same powder charge. I heard starline runs low on capacity. I will be using different head stamp for different bullet weights.

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Exactly my observation. Starline cases are several grains heavier, and have less internal volume than the LC brass. Not a bad thing either way, but just something to consider. The case capacity differences would require individual load workups. One might work better than the other, not because of the quality of the brass but because of the volume.

Charlie98 said:

As long as you work up each load in it's own brass, you should be fine.

Although I have bought new LC brass, I would not specifically buy new brass for .223/5.56 unless it was for something like benchrest... there is too much once-fired out there for cheap.

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Exactly.

GW Staar said:

Every piece passes the plunk test in my Wilson .308 gauge, with nary a single glitch.

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Check your Wilson gauge. The Wilson rifle gauges I have are NOT SAAMI min chamber gauges, they are actually headspace gauges. What is the difference? You can take fired brass and drop it in the case headspace gauge and measure how much the brass has stretched from firing. This allows you to know how much to bump the shoulders for a particular rifle. The inside diameter is larger than SAAMI dimensions, the only dimension it checks is the distance from the head to the shoulder. Having said that, I do have one Wilson gauge in 223 that I have to neck size before the brass from one gun will drop into it.

I have a Hornady gauge that is a SAAMI spec chamber gauge.

"Lake City" makes and sells tons of ammo. I guess it's good enough for our US Military.
Crimped primers?
Crimped Primers? So what? Many brands have crimped primers.

https://www.ammoland.com/2018/01/fe...s-relationship-lake-city-plant/#axzz5Y9VXBgxB

Bfh_auto said:

Our military doesn't save their brass to reload it later. That's why I asked if it's worth the hassle to deal with crimps. From what everyone is saying it is easily worth it.

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The brass you find at the range or buy as once fired was not used by our Military either and no. most of it was not from a range that guys were going full auto either.
I have bought cases of 5.56 ammo that was LC brass.

Rule3 said:

The brass you find at the range or buy as once fired was not used by our Military either and no. most of it was not from a range that guys were going full auto either.
I have bought cases of 5.56 ammo that was LC brass.

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Same here with buying factory 5.56 using LC brass. It's good brass. What can I say! OK, so you have a couple extra steps getting rid of the primer crimp and trimming the case of that weird bullet crimp.

Here is just one place were you can buy fully processed mixed headstamp brass, and never worry about a crimp. Trimmed even.

https://store.tjconevera.com/onfi22comifu.html

Rule3 said:

Here is just one place were you can buy fully processed mixed headstamp brass, and never worry about a crimp. Trimmed even.

https://store.tjconevera.com/onfi22comifu.html

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I have seriously considered buying fully processed brass, as brass prep is not one of my favorite things. But, two things nice about doing it myself: 1) I instantly know if it was truly once fired, as soon as I push the primer out. Crimped pockets take much more force. I doubt that the vendor selling processed brass takes notice, or cares. 2) I can size/trim the brass to my spec.

I use all LC brass for all 308 and about 1/2 of my 223. Thats 3000 308 cases and probably 20k+ 223 cases.

Is it worth it? Yes.

Since we are talking about 223 here, Ill address this first.
Crimped primers: Sometimes they can be a PITA to punch out. My Lee decapper has done 1000s with a handful of bent pins, and I finally replaced it with a Mighty Armory decapper, and I dont doubt that this die will do 1000s as well with a stronger pin and setup.
Crimped pockets: Easy to remove with a $5 Hornady crimp remover tool in about 3 seconds per case. Depending on your work flow, you just add that to the prep run. You only have to do this once.
Trimming: You should trim all new brass anyway
Shot thru a MG: Ive dealt with some MG 223 brass. Is it harder to size? Yes, but not that much. Its only a 223 case.

But this is why I shoot LC brass:
It lasts and lasts and lasts. I have numerous LC cases that are 5+ reloads that are holding up just fine coming out of my AR's with some fairly stout loads.
Its consistent. Even year to year, lot to lot. Its not Lapua, but its my go to for any semiauto rifle.
Its cheap. Buy a 1000 or 2, and depending on how good of a job you do keeping tabs on your brass, it might last you a lifetime.
Case capacity is roughly the same or better than commercial brass
No off center primer pockets! Havent found one in over 20k pieces.

As a side note on commercial 223 brass: You will find that alot of commercial headstamp 223 brass today is crimped so you have to prep for that as well.

LC 308 can be a different animal. Most of it is MG fired as the military has very few rifles chambered in 308 that shoot the volume for the amount of brass that is available. So its the same deal with 223, but sometimes you can get a batch that really is a pain to size. However my reasons are exactly the same as 223.

IMO: 5.56mm Lake City brass is fine stuff. My 5.56mm and 7.62mm brass is free, much is self generated: Some comes from folks who don't re-load.

My 5.56mm cases are usually worked in 500 round lots. Cases are full length re-sized, trimmed to length, de-primed, de-crimped and chamfered. My accuracy reloads have the primer pockets uniformed and flash holes de-burred.

i'm lucky to have a large supply of 5.56mm and 7.62mm ammo. The very best 5.56mm brass i've found is head stamped TW 67: It is used in accuracy re-loads for two bolt action rifles.

Warning: Some newer LC brass has long necks that must be trimmed.

Charlie98 said:

OK, but you are still wrong. Resizing MG fired brass is one thing, having case head separations is quite another. Brass that has been fired in an oversized chamber, or been subject to the violent extraction process of a MG (or other semi-automatic rifle like the M-14) may resize all day long, but you need to be aware of case stretching and the problems it causes.

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Toprudder said:

Check your Wilson gauge. The Wilson rifle gauges I have are NOT SAAMI min chamber gauges, they are actually headspace gauges. What is the difference? You can take fired brass and drop it in the case headspace gauge and measure how much the brass has stretched from firing. This allows you to know how much to bump the shoulders for a particular rifle. The inside diameter is larger than SAAMI dimensions, the only dimension it checks is the distance from the head to the shoulder. Having said that, I do have one Wilson gauge in 223 that I have to neck size before the brass from one gun will drop into it.

I have a Hornady gauge that is a SAAMI spec chamber gauge.

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I have a Remington R-25 AR-10 clone. It's made for hunting & accuracy rather than war. I think it might not be too tolerant in ammo dept......Federal factory blue box wouldn't even autofeed past the first shot. The Remington and Winchester factory I shot, shot and fed flawlessly.

I was therefore "very" concerned with this MG brass being able to size well enough to use in that rifle. Sized as outlined in my last post, it feeds and shoots, using IMR 4896, CCI primers, and Nosler bullets flawlessly. What else can I say?

As for Charlie98's concerns....it remains to be seen. After shooting this it still looks fine....no detectable casehead separation......how many loads this brass will do and stay healthy....again... remains to be seen.....and what exactly am I wrong about? I don't have any preconceived predictions on how many loads it will produce, I just know I loaded it and I shot it. Happy with the results whether or not anyone else is.

As for Toprudder's concerns.....I don't know. I just know that that the box of Federal factory brass I had (don't know if it was a bad batch) wouldn't plunk in the Wilson gauge. My reloads do. And my reloads auto-feed where the said Federal factory wouldn't.

I'm not positive about the Remington R25 being tight (near minimum) or not.....I just know that the small base sizer was bought having been spooked by that blue box of Federals. I did not do a study on the matter.

Bottom line is the MG brass was resizable, loadable, and loads were shootable. I'll leave anything more than that to those who care. We will see how many times it reloads without problems.

GW Staar said:

As for Charlie98's concerns....it remains to be seen. After shooting this it still looks fine....no detectable casehead separation......how many loads this brass will do and stay healthy....again... remains to be seen.....and what exactly am I wrong about?

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For those that are not familiar with machine-gun fired brass, and 7.62mm in particular, this is what I'm talking about...



That thinning of the case wall is where brass typically will stretch. Sometimes it's noticeable on the outside as a bright ring around the case, sometimes not, and not to be confused with a burnish ring from a sizer, etc. This case in particular is a once-fired LC case... yes, once-fired. I had several case head separations with this lot of brass, so I checked the remaining brass with a bent paperclip run down the inside... the sharp edge of the wire will catch on the stretched ring. I sectioned 3 or 4 likely candidates, this was the most pronounced. That stretched case can lead to this...



...that was the first case that came apart on me, the second load for the case, a starting load of IMR4895.

As far as GW being 'wrong,' what I meant was just because you can size a case down doesn't necessarily mean everything is good to go.

As far as the OP's initial question, I don't really know enough about 5.56/223 brass to comment on it, but if it's been fired through a worn out machine gun (assuming military once-fired) I would think the same would apply.

I use LC for.223 & .308
It takes a long time to work it up----it keeps me busy & I have never had any trouble shooting it.

Charlie98 said:

As far as GW being 'wrong,' what I meant was just because you can size a case down doesn't necessarily mean everything is good to go.

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You assume a lot. I never said anything about everything is good to go, by just being able to size. The myth I busted (at least in my own eyes) is that you can't size MG brass....Period. It is always up to the reloader to make sure the brass he loads with is safe. I don't load brass that is already damaged. The paper clip test, part of most reloaders' visual inspection process, is step #1 when I bring any brass home. Walkalong just gave an example of that. The brass I bought from Wideners was no exception. Out of the 1000 rounds I purged maybe 50 for various reasons....paper clip found a few......I could be wrong, but I doubt those few were once fired. Swaged crimps aren't that easy to notice on initial inspection.

I'm wrong about plenty of things in reloading, but I didn't make any claims on this thread, other than I can size MG brass fairly easy with a plain ole lube pad and some mica powder.....I'm not wrong about that......nor am I wrong about how the glorious Imperial wax I have used for years failed at it.

Well, to complete the story... this was my first swing at loading 7.62 for my M1a, I bought 2 1K lots of processed brass from Scharch. Thinking that surely that brass was processed and good to go for at least one loading, I just went ahead and started loading it up. Long story short, it turned out to be a nightmare... not only did I have case separations, one particular headstamp actually fractured through the case head, blowing out the magazine. I culled that headstamp out and scrapped it, and started probing all the cases no matter what. In the meantime, I've sworn off 'once-fired' rifle brass of any kind, I now buy loaded ammos or new brass so I have control over it from start to finish.

Bfh_auto said:

I was taking about American Eagle LC brass that was fired in my own guns. I don't buy used brass because I don't know what the head space is on the forearm it came from.

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Right on! It seemed like the thing to do, the first time. I actually found a source for virgin LC 5.56mm brass, it was nice stuff, and no primer crimp, otherwise I just buy loaded ammo and use that brass.