What are your guys' opinions on good 223 brass? I don'e necessarily need Lapua brass out of an AR, but what are thoughts on Hornady? Rem? Win? 'Insert company' once fired...? This'll be for a 'plinker' out to 3-400 or so if it makes any difference

LC - good brass, my brass of choice.

It can be found quite reasonable processed, or if you don't mind doing the processing yourself it can be really reasonable.

Here is a link to some processed from a 'fire member -

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/11912407/Searchpage/3/Main/816219/Words/223+brass/Search/true/Re:_FS:_Fully_Processed_FC_223#Post11912407

drover

I prefer Remington for my ARs. I buy it in bulk from BrassmanBrass.

Same here but for bolt guns.

Have had great luck with Winchester as well.

I also prefer R-P....

Fantastic source...

Brassman lives about two miles around the corner from me..

Great guy and he's got plenty of brass over there...

couldn't deal with better folks...

I've gotten spoiled on Remington Brass from over at his place as of late...

no need to give the primer pockets a lot of attention, like so many Lake City and Federal stuff always seem to have that pesky military crimp...

he unknowingly got me spoiled...

he's got plenty of Winchester also...

great guy, great prices and includes shipping...

what else can ya want!

In my 223's, I use Remington, Winchester, LC, along with some Federal and Hornady bras. Have more LC and Winchester than anything else. Can't tell any difference.

I'll also vouch for Brassman's once-fired Remington brass. I'm pretty sure some of the other brands would work as well, but I haven't tried them.

I've only used three: R-P (Remington), LC 14 (Lake City 2014), and FC (Federal). This was all range scrounged at my local range. In my limited experience I like R-P brass. All my most accurate loads have been loaded with it.

I don't care for Federal .223 brass. I scrounged enough that I didn't want to just scrap it so I ended up using for my reduced Seafire/Ingwe "bunny loads". The cheap 55g Hornady SP over 13.0g of IMR 4198 for 2,100 fps and ~1.5 MOA. A hoot to shoot.

I've only tried one load work-up with the LC brass and honestly it was disappointing, but there is no way to tell if it was due to the brass. It was a new powder, new bullet, and new primer as well so who knows what part of the combo my gun didn't like. LC 14 brass, Barnes 55g TTSX, Ramshot TAC, and Remington 7 1/2 primer. I had high hopes but the mini-Audette ladder didn't show anything worth persuing. I plan to retry the bullet+powder with R-P brass and my regular CCI 400 primer. I've heard great things about the 55g TTSX and TAC and really want to get them to shoot!

Since you can often find so much abandonded .223 brass I had high hopes of being able to feed the gun nothing but scrounged brass. I had to cave recently as I decided to standardize on R-P brass and I don't want to have to slowly scrounge up a good supply. I have still never paid for new brass, but I did just recently order 500 pieces of once-fired R-P brass from Brassman Brass ($49 delivered). My tumbler finally crapped out so I haven't had a change to get it loaded up yet.

I can't speak for Winchester as I've never used it but I'd suggest giving R-P brass a try.

Good Luck.

Many years ago my good friend and Varmint Hunting partner "Irv" acquired one of the first "heavy barrel" AR type Rifles.
He strapped a Leupold 6.5x20 variable power scope on to it and went to town!
He used Winchester 223 brass and loaded his ammo for this Rifle on a Dillon progressive press - and then you could have knocked me over with a feather when he began shooting (consistently!) 3/4" five shot groups at 200 yards with this set-up!
I have seen him do this a dozen times there at the SPAA Range in Tukwila, Washington.
I have seen Irv take Rock Chucks with this set-up in excess of 1/4 mile away!
And probably some Prairie Dogs as well but my memory is not clear on that point right now.
I like Winchester brass in my 223 bolt guns but I also use LaPua, Federal, Remington and Hornady in my many and varied 223 bolt guns.
Best of luck to you in your decision making and brass availability.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

This. I find it to be great brass with the smallest amount of neck thickness variation of any other I have measured.

LC Takes a lot of prep if you get raw oncefired, but it's pretty consistent and lasts in my ARs.

I process brass from range pickup for general AR rounds. After prep, I use whichever I grab out of the box and reload it.

I can say that LC is by far the hardest to process of the major brands you see. I use a 45deg bit made for removing the primer crimp and you can feel the difference in LC brass. PMC is the softest I have done prep work on, and FC is nearly always shorter than Spec, but they all run through the AR's without issue.

I have a couple thousand LC, I think they are 2014's set aside that the weights are within a few hundreths and the oal are identical within spec's.... these have been received from different places and they are all the same... good run of brass that time.

I miss the days when one could buy 1000 pieces of Lake City brass, that were all cleaned and shined with the primer crimp removed for $35 shipped from Cabelas...


after I process say 50 rounds of once fired Lake City brass, and load them... and then process 50 rounds of Remington or Winchester once fired brass...

I wonder constantly why I screw around with Lake City any more...

I use the LC brass too, prepping inst that big of a deal. Just do 50 or so at a time. Make sure you trim it, any brass in an AR needs trimming. Don't be a dumass like me and load 500 pieces of Speer brass, without trimming. No workie for cshit. Ima a dumass!!! Worked in bolt, so it wasn't a total loss.

I use the LC brass too, prepping inst that big of a deal. Just do 50 or so at a time. Make sure you trim it, any brass in an AR needs trimming. Don't be a dumass like me and load 500 pieces of Speer brass, without trimming. No workie for cshit. Ima a dumass!!! Worked in bolt, so it wasn't a total loss.

I am so tired of prepping LC brass, have over 3000.
No more.
I use PMC exclusively now, no crimps, and seldom does it need any primer pocket work. I load them to 5.56 pressure specs, and they hold up nicely.

I have worked my way through a thousand or so pieces of LC brass and also don't view it as a a terrible chore. Maybe when in the midst of the process I was hating life for a moment or two, but now that it's behind me I don't care- and will continue to do so in future as I really like my results with LC brass.

For surplus military brass, Lake City hands down. Commercial, I've got Winchester and it's not given me any trouble, but that's 1000 cases I got ten years ago.
I've also got a medium size stash of IMI that has been fantastic stuff, just keeps on going.
I am not fond of Federal, I get stuck cases and rim tear-offs more from Fed than from anything else.
PMC brass scrounged has given me pretty good results, surprised me, actually.
Whatever you can get your paws on that looks nice and preps consistently should work for you, in a decent batch size (200 and over), should be fine. Except Federal. Federal and I do not get along at all.

I just figure for brass with a military crimp, I have to come up with a better way of getting rid of the crimp and reaming out the primer pocket...

anyone know of any good semi automated way of doing it?

Thanks for the kind words about our brass. I try. John

Brassman has good brass!!

Brassman for me. End of discussion.





P

Higster...

Thanks for that recommendation....

got one on order...

Yeah man. It's a fast way to crank out a bunch.

I hang a rag to fling them into with a box to catch them.