Lake City brass?

[WldWldWest]

Somebody school me in detail please what I have to do to reload 556 lake city brass?
I've reloaded thousands of rounds from 223 up to 338 lapua but never any military brass and I just landed on a pile of it!

Thanks in advance!

Doug

 

[bcrich]

Re: Lake City brass?

Just remove the crimp and go to town! I have never seen a difference with commercial 223 cases and mil 5.56 brass. Sometimes you need small base dies if they were fired in a saw 249.

 

[gunsnjeeps]

Re: Lake City brass?

Depending on how much you have the Dillon deswager ($100) is worth it. I decrimped 850 .308's in about 4 and a half hours Sunday.

If it's only a hundred or so I'd get a ream for 17 bucks.

Some folks chuck a counter sink in a drill and ream them, I haven't tried that method.

 

[Beef82]

Re: Lake City brass?

Yeah just full length size and remove the crimp, I prefer swaging, simple preference not science. I use an RCBS pocket swager, works well enough. If you look around there's lists showing case capacities for various military and commercial headstamps online, LC has one of the larger as I recall. Definitely not the reduced case capacity issues of 7.62x51.

 

[WldWldWest]

Re: Lake City brass?

Thanks for the info!

What kinda life are ya'll getting out of LC brass?

 

[Pavlata]

Re: Lake City brass?

One thing I have found is that the case capacity isn't what it is with Remington, Winchester, PMC, etc .223 brass depending on what powder you use. The 5.56 brass is slightly thicker. Some powder loads will overfill the LC 5.56 cases.

One of my standard loads for plinking is 25gr of Varget 55gr FMJ. You would be hard pressed to get much more than 25.5gr of Varget in and still not be at max load but it would be compressed.

Just remember that depending on your load using the thicker brass that you could possibly run slightly higher pressures

 

[260shtr]

Re: Lake City brass?

I am in the process of processing some 1X fired WCC ( Winchester) 5.56 brass and it all had to be trimmed, most was at max tolerance.
If this is going to be GP plinking ammo I'd stop there. Mine will be shot out of a SPR'ish rifle out to 600-700. For this I uniform the primer pockets and the flashhole . It's a one time pain in the butt, but worth it for me.

 

[Beef82]

Re: Lake City brass?

I'm not sure what kind of life I get out of it, my AR is so hard on the rims that I've been continually scrapping a few and putting new cases into circulation. I don't anneal and have had few small cracks form in the necks, no loose primer pockets, no signs of head seperation.

 

[balkandom]

Re: Lake City brass?

LC ammo life is decent, at least in 7.62. I have some that I have loaded at least 4 times and it still looks great.

 

[WldWldWest]

Re: Lake City brass?

Appreciate all the good info guy's!

 

[Spanky8601]

Re: Lake City brass?

Just make sure to get rid of the crimp. Hornady makes a nice little crimp remover if you do not want to swag.

 

[Muttt]

Re: Lake City brass?

I punch out the primers and then use a primer pocket uniformer to remove the crimp. After that, it's load as usual. It's also thicker and should last longer in the long run.

 

[Ol Rob]

Re: Lake City brass?

I have used several hundred LC LR head stamped brass through a life cycle. It work hardens and the necks crack after 6-8 reloadings, but annealing can stop that. My best lot of brass went to the 8 or 9th loading, but you better check the inside of the brass for the stretch near the base. Case head separation is no laughing matter. I got lucky and pulled one in half in the sizing die. All I am saying is this is really good brass, just watch carefully for time to retire it.
YMMV-Rob

 

[madmathew]

Re: Lake City brass?

I use a Lee Universal decapping die on my Dillon 650 with a casefeeder and then use the Dillon swager on them. This seems to be the most efficient way to process the crimped brass for me.