Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Best 1X fired 223-5.56 brass for reloading?

I also saw some pulled down Federal for about $60.00 for 500 new pulled down primed.Any experience with this.Thanks ahead ,Huntz

I don't like Federal 223 bras, primer pockets too soft.

I use W-W new and many times fired brass to reload, fed brass is a pain in the ass to seat primers in.

LC, PMC, Privi Partizan, WW, Rem S&B all work fine............although I just did a couple of lots of virgin WW & even after the primer pockets were uniformed for depth, there was still a fair amount of variance in seating pressure for the primers.

LC is by far my 1st choice if it's available & I've never encountered a problem with Rem, ever.

Recent LC is made by Fed & I don't know the exact date change so the pre-Fed is better, IMO.

I have some virgin '09 LC w/o the FC on it, but also some '16 LC & that has the FC on it. Don't know if the LC -FC pockets will be soft on reloading or not as I have not reloaded any of it yet.

Only bad thing about the once fired LC mil brass is that the crimp has to be removed.

MM

Seating primers is easy on Fed brass.... retaining them in the same pocket prior to and after firing is another thing.

FC made LC brass is LC brass, it has to be made to the LC spec, not the soft FC spec.

We shot mostly LC for years, I still have over 100K of them around. Shot quite a bit of PMC too, but it had off center flash holes but shot fine.

Shot to much in quantity to afford better brass..

IMI is supposed too be top notch and compare well to LC. A lot of highpower shooters are starting to use Wolf Gold brass with excellent results. It was available as empty primed brass for cheap last year but I don't know if there is any left. Another path to Wolf Gold brass is buy 1000 rounds loaded with 55 FMJ for $316 shipped. You get plenty of practice while fireforming your brass. For reference, ten 100 count bags of new, empty, unprimed Winchester .223 brass from Cabela's will cost $310 plus tax and shipping.

I have two USPS medium flat rat boxes full of range pick up sitting here next to me. I would send you a 20 pound box for $50 shipped.

FWIW, I've won a lot of matches with just LC brass... out to 1000 with irons in the service rifle class.

Having gone through that with over 1800 pieces of once-fired range brass, I found that to be true with every .223 and 5.56 type of once-fired brass I had.

Hornady, Speer, W-W, PMD, Federal, LC and some others. Primer pockets ahd tobe swaged and beveled. All had circular crimps.

Never seen any 223 brass that was crimped but I only load RP, Hornady, and WW.

Mil surplus 5.56 stuff is always crimped and the Dillon Super Swager worked pretty good when I reloaded LC.

Federal has been running LC for a number of years now and LC brass is made to mil specs. Unfortunately Clinton signed an EO that banned surplus ammo from being sold to the public. What we get now is loaded specifically for commercial sales and does not have any standard to be held to.

Federal 223 brass is not worth loading to me.

IMI is some of the best brass you can buy speaking of surplus anyway.

Must be because I still prime on the press, not much feel for the sweet spot.

I bought some once fired LC fully cleaned and processed 500 for $45.00 to try out.

Much prefer LC brass. I don't mind removing primer crimps. I honestly had no issues with FC brass, but it's the stuff I leave behind on the ground. I pick up my brass when shooting LC.

Brassmanbrass (or something very similar) had once-fired no crimp Remington brass for $75.00 per thousand, shipped. I've had good results with it.

Someone mentioned IMI brass. I'm sure it's good brass, but the small batch I had was very heavy in comparison with other .223 or 5.56 brass, about 10% heavier as I recall. Would probably require a powder charge reduction.

IIRC surplus brass can still be sold though. And all thats likely to change for the better anyway.

Oh my memory... I can recally 1000 LC once fired at 19 bucks at gun shows.... and likely couldhave found it for much less...if looking hard.

Yes surplus once fired range brass is still being sold by the truck loads. I saw a chance to bid on a semi truck load of it a few years ago from a local base.

What I meant was real LC M193 or M855 ammo is not being sold to civilians, at least from what I've read. Federal does make xm193 and such but it, probably including the brass, is not made to the same standards as MIL Spec ammo. Maybe it's loaded with genuine LC brass or maybe it's in FC cases as some have seen.

So, does anyone know for sure if the current brass marked FC LC with year is made to mil specs or not? It's all annealed.

MM

I bought 1000 cleaned and swaged lake city cases from brass bombers for $75. at that price the brass is dang near disposable. I only manage to pick up about 40% of the cases I fire. its all good, I will just order more when its time. The primer pockets do often need a bit of extra grinding on them though. so I just touch em up on my rcbs trim station.

MontanaMan, what year is your FC LC brass marked?

I would load some warmer loads and see if it retains the primers. I'll admit my run in with FC brass was 10 years ago. I bought some new LC brass marked 09 I think and it has been fine.

Most of the difference in M and XM is powder type and consistency along with no sealed bullet. The new FC marked LC brass makes me wonder.

The stuff that has FC LC on it is 16 & I haven't used it yet but I will be shortly loaded as you've mentioned..........already got around 1,000 rounds of it loaded.

Got a fair amount of 09 too & it does not have FC marking on it & it's been fine for me in both bolt guns & AR's.

After I get in to the 16 stuff here in the next 2-3 months I let you know how it holds up.

MM