Winchester W Box- LC brass

[gifbohane]

Made a serious discovery yesterday. My range neighbor saw me picking up my brass and offered me his. He handed me 100 cases of Winchester White Box 223 in the WWB box. When I got home, I saw that it was all LC brass.

So, LC is providing Winchester WB with their brass. Never knew that. I always thought that after, say Nosler and Starline, that LC was right up there in quality. And that the quality of WWB was not there.

I thought that FC, R-P, GFL was pretty good. IMI to my thinking should be well made by the Israelis. They have to have dependable ammo.

I must re-think my case saving strategy after this.

Any thoughts from you all?

 

[Dynamite Rabbit]

Winchester started operating the Lake City Arsenal in October of 2020. That might explain it.

 

[ballman6711]

I bought a box of WWB .223 last year and when I opened it, it was all LC brass although it had various date stamps. Figured I'd shoot it and then have it to reload. Mentioned it to a coworker and he offered to buy it, so I sold it to him for what I had payed with the request that when he shot it he would recover the brass and give it back to me. He shot it and left it laying at the range.

chris

 

[kcofohio]

Winchester started operating the Lake City Arsenal in October of 2020. That might explain it.

This
When Federal ran Lake City, I would get "F.C." brass stamped L.C.

 

[gifbohane]

I am surprised that they would use their LC brass on plinking ammo. Or maybe the LC brass is not as great as I thought.

 

[FROGO207]

They often find ammo that is not in spec for the military contract the agreed to. Maybe low velocity or such. Rather than scrap it they would sell it as plinking ammo. This is most likely what you ended up with. The brass is probably A1.

 

[kcofohio]

Here is the Federal cases headstamped LC 15

Probably as long as they fulfill the contracts, the rest is up to their desecration of what they market. Just a guess.

 

[Charlie98]

Probably as long as they fulfill the contracts, the rest is up to their desecration of what they market. Just a guess.

That...^^^

There are a number of things that allow whoever is running Lake City to peel off production and sell it on the civilian market... if a specific lot of brass or ammo does not meet the military contractual requirements and is rejected, it is retasked and sold as components or WWB (et al) ammo. Rejection can occur for any number of reasons... the velocity does not meet a specific threshold, accuracy requirements, and so on. Components are the same thing. There is also overage... extra production to make sure the quantities are there to meet the contract. They can also use idle production (not fulfilling contracts) to make ammo or components to sell on the civilian market.

In my experience, LC 5.56mm is pretty decent stuff. I have seen it with LC or FC headstamps, etc... and it's all pretty good. LC 7.62mm is another story... and I've pretty much sworn off LC 7.62mm brass components or loaded ammo as a rule.