Lake City Nato vs. Non Nato

[aklaunch]

I purchased a case of ammo advertised as 5.56 XM193 a few years back from a place in Texas. The ammo that showed up did not have the nato head stamp. It is labeled LC 09.

It shoots good for what it is. Unfortunately i think this is ignorant or false advertising on their part?. I suppose it could be loaded to NATO pressures. I am just to lazy to set my chronograph up for plinking rounds.

Does anybody here know the difference in case quality for reloading?

None of the cases have crimped or sealed primers obviously. For that i am glad.

I have spent a bunch of time scouring the internet looking for an answer as to what the difference is. My guess is they are just loaded to normal 223 pressures and sold as XM193.

I scoured the internet for an hour or so looking for an answer about this ammo but could not find anything that seemed correct.

So i turned to the HIGH ROAD

The majority of the threads ended with the Federal cartridge conspiracy. Then turned to the answer that only XM855 is nato stamped. That is wrong again as they still make NATO/5.56 (spec) XM193 for the National Guard who still pack around 20 inch A2's and A3's. Not to mention i have a couple hundred rounds of the XM193 civilian real deal.

I suppose i am not all that interested in why LC made non NATO spec ammo as far as waterproof/velocity/MOA requirements go etc. Would be nice to know how the cases faired after a few reloads though.

Thanks for your time.

 

[taliv]

http://www.ar15.com/ammo/project/hist_cross.html

The circle-cross Å is the NATO symbol. It indicates that the ammo was loaded in a NATO-approved facility and meets the NATO specifications for that round. Note that NATO specifications are not the same as US military specifications and that many NATO-approved rounds do not meet US military specs. US military specs (such as M193 and M855) have additional requirements, such as minimum velocities, that the NATO specs (like SS-109) don't have.

Fact: There are some exceptions to this rule. For example, recent Lake City and Winchester M193 is loaded in cases marked with the NATO circle-cross. This is done simply to save money by having one production run of cases instead of two. M193 was never adopted by NATO; by the time NATO decided to standardize on 5.56mm, the SS-109/M855 ammo was available, and was adopted as the standard. M193 is still "Mil-Spec," it just isn't "NATO" spec.

by the way, the X means it was rejected but still useable and will be sold to civilians. So if you're being picky, then XM855 and XM193 are NOT the "real deal".

even so, my expectation would be that the case is crimped at both the primer pocket and mouth into the cannelure

 

[steve4102]

As for reloading the brass, LC brass is good stuff, NATO cross or not.

Re aware of the internet myth that LC and other Military 5.56 brass has less case capacity than Civilian 223 brass. In most instances LC brass has more case capacity then civilian 223 brass.

 

[rcmodel]

X doesn't mean it was rejected.

It means the ammo was loaded for commercial sale on the same production lines.

Federal / ATK Lake City ammo plant 50 miles from here had several periods when all mil-spec contracts were filled and continued making ammo on the same lines for commercial sale to prevent shutting lines and laying off people.

There WAS in fact a huge demand for .223/5.56 ammo all the time they didn't have capacity to fill.

Don't read too much into it.

Rc

 

[taliv]

various federal reps have claimed that the x does not mean rejected.

however, the facts remain that there are constant reports of xm193 not meeting the specs of m193. as recent as 4 posts ago, we have a claim that they are "obviously not crimped". there are many posts across many forums showing examples of xm193 without sealant and not meeting the velocity standards, accuracy standards, etc.

even if they use the same manufacturing components, equipment and process and just don't test it, that is still enough to NOT be mil-spec.

i'll take docGKR's word on it, but this is an interesting thread to read on the matter
http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?25709-The-word-from-Federal-on-XM193&p=319202#post319202


edit: if your contention is that it's "not rejected" because they never claimed it was mil-spec m193, i won't debate their intentions, etc. but my suspicion is that what winds up on commercial shelves is a mix of both ammo that was intentionally mfg for civilians (sometimes without sealant, etc.) and ammo that was intended for the mil but failed the spec.

what is clear is that xm193 and m193 are not the same. (which is not to say xm193 isn't good plinking / practice ammo)

 

[aklaunch]

My apologies for the 1st draft there... It was not to clear. (Edited)

Thanks for the input!

I can only speculate the Non Nato brass is identical in quality? In fact much better for me as i don't have to remove the primer crimp.


It shoots great! I just need to be more careful about my purchases. A phone interrogation would be suitable for all large quantity ammo purchases.

As far as purchasing ammo for storage, i would rather it have the sealant on both ends for long term preservation. Fortunately, i did not have this in mind at the time or it would have been returned to the sender.

Have a good night Y'all

 

[DBR]

The last time this issue was raised a rep from ATK said " XM193 ammo meets all specs for commercial ammo and is safe to use".

I sold all of my XM193 ammo and now I load my own. No more questions about what I am shooting. The Lake City brass is usually good. The milspec bullets are not very accurate. Who knows what the powder is but most likely a version of H335 which can be very temperature sensitive. I feel much safer rolling my own.