Back when mil surp 5.56 Lake City was dirt cheap I picked up a few thousand rounds of green tip because I wanted the brass. From what I’ve read the Military demands some tight tolerances on it.
Yea, it’s a pain to knock that primer crimp out. But can you tell me if my information is correct or not? Thanks.
What, the tolerances? Dunno what the tolerances are. I’ve heard all manner of things, much of it non-verifiable. I might have a chance in the near future to pose this question to a guy who used to be a gunsmith for the US AMU and I’ll ask him about LC tolerances.
I doubt that they’re as tight as Lapua or Norma, but then you’re paying oh-so-much less for it. I’m sure the snipers and long-range shooters are getting special brass. They’re not using off-the-rack rifles, why would they feed a hand-built rifle with mass-production ammo?
That said, I’ve never had a bad batch of LC brass. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but whenever I can get LC brass cheaply, I get it. My wife asks “Have you used up all of the old brass?”
“Why no, dear...”
“Well, why do you need more?”
“Because. Just because.”
“sigh.” (and you know what THAT means...)
Never had a complaint other than “I can’t get it as cheaply as I used to!” (the common wailing refrain of shooters these days). I’ve never exhaustively weighed LC brass because once I got done prepping it, it always worked well for me. I worry first about the weight of charges and bullets, then the size of the flash holes. I’ll still turn the necks on all of them to make sure the bullet is concentric with the bore. Weighing cases isn’t high on my priority list, frankly. It certainly hurts nothing to do it, but IMO, my first worry in cases is whether they’re in good condition, whether they show signs of impending case failure (that bright ring forward of the rear extraction groove), whether the primer pocket will hold a primer, etc.
Can’t say that I’ve noticed anything better or worse in LC brass in that department. It does seem to be longer-lived brass if you don’t hot-rock it and anneal the case necks every third loading, from my experience. You can see where the LC boys did this in factory brass - see that “stain” from the shoulder to the mouth? That’s where the brass was annealed at the factory during the necking-down stage of brass formation.
That said, NB that the LC NATO brass is a bit thicker and if you charge the round to the same level as commercial .223 brass, the smaller case capacity of the 5.56 LC brass will result in higher pressures. As always, start low, work up. Don’t start with the max charge in the reloading manual, but you know that already.
Also NB that the leade on 5.56 chambers allows for more freebore than in SAAMI .223 chambers (by something like 0.083” if memory serves). Ergo, putting 5.56 NATO-spec ammo (especially with heavier) into a SAAMI chamber “could” result in the bullet being pushed into the lands from the get-go, which can result in very high pressures, whereas putting SAAMI .223 ammo into a 5.56 chamber just results in larger freebore and possible loss of accuracy.
Just remembered and checked my notes: The case capacity issue is mostly for 7.62 LC brass. It’s almost a non-issue for 5.56 LC brass, from my notes. Like, oh, less than 0.3 gr diff between SAMMI cases and LC cases in 5.56/.223. I’d still start low and work up, of course.
In .308/7.62 — there’s a bit more that needs to be taken into account.
Sadly, I have very little -06 LC brass. Seems as tho none of the old timers I shoot with will part with it. They open a bolt and they move pretty quick for 75+ years old when jumping after their brass.