Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles LAKE CITY 223 BRASS

I'd want to know, too. Where is the trimmed material coming from? Excess neck lengths of unfired rounds? Short case necks are not a big deal. 32 thou over max length might be.

Or is it base to datum stretch? I'd plunk a sample of unfired ammo in the case gauge.

You would think cases that are in the 1.790 + length would be into the lands/ raising pressures

Unless the pre-fired case length wasn't into the lands. If the base to datum line dimension is very short the stretch will occur on firing. Fired case length before sizing will probably be OK.

Case gauging/case length measurements of both unfired rounds and un-sized fired cases would help sort things out.

If this is range pick up stuff
It could be reman
I know black hills used to load LC brass as reman ammo and was some cheaper than new stuff

I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet, but those would be manufactured since Winchester took over the
Arsenal from Federal. Don't know if that matters or not, you'd think the feds would have the same quality requirements no matter who is the contractor. Personally I have only found a few 21 - 23 dated cases when I have cleaned up after myself at the range, I'm saving them back to test separately when I get 20 or so. Everything gets checked every loading for length and trimmed if necessary anyway. I've always found LC to be good brass after the initial prep and well worth the effort. As always YMMV.

I get a lot of mileage out of Lake City brass....a lot of it with over 40 reloads and counting...

I usually am not pushing its pressures to the extreme... and I use it in bolt actions... single shooting it..

I recently picked up 250 pieces of this same brass from a local guy who doesn't reload. I have found the same variances. Made me wonder about QC on the Winchester run lines, too.

I'm going to FL size them, trim them to a consistent length and shoot them.

Ed

The 223 LC stamped brass is shorter than the standard LC w/date brass.

There like Federal brass

I don't think this is super common, but there are AR "builders" out there who put together barrels without the proper gauges. I would think excess headspace would cause the "datum stretch" you referred to. Brass case length of 1.790" would make me do some measurements and I don't think I would bother with trying to use casings where the shoulder had moved .020" or so. Could end up with casehead separation.