What are your guys preference when it comes to 556 lake city brass? Do you prefer to buy the processed stuff: cleaned, deprimed & swage, resized, and trimmed?

Or perhaps you prefer to trust yourself to process your own brass? just buy the cleaned brass.

I was leaning towards buying the processed stuff despite it costing more because of the trouble of removing the crimped primer and having to swage the pocket? I'm new to reloading rifle so this seems like a big pain in the butt! Is it worth learning how to do myself? Thanks for the feedback!

BTW, if it matters I have a bolt action 223rem.

I suppose it depends whether or not you have the time and inclination to process it yourself. You will need a tool to remove the crimp. You will probably have to trim to length. All this takes several hours. If you have the time and gear, go for it.

That’s the key statement right there. It took me 45 minutes to remove the crimp on 500 round using a drill and Hornady tool. Even though I am a old retired guy and it cut into my everyday routine of scrounging gun shops and buying up all the powder and primers whether I need them or not to sell at gun shows.😂

I much prefer processing my own brass. Most of my LC is range pickup but I did buy 1k of 5.56 once that was mostly LC.
I have opened up the primer pockets by both chamfering with the Hornady tool or a countersink tool in a drill, or swageing with the Dillon tool. Honestly I have seen no difference in the end result and chamfering is much faster.
If you don't have the tools required, or several hours available to process the brass or you don't really enjoy spending the time required, buy the processed stuff.
Either way, LC brass is some of the best.

Process my own. I know it's once fired.

If the crimp is intact it's once fired. Easy enough.

Right now, it's a matter of what you can get.

Good point about the crimp meaning once fired.

I'd get the cleaned stuff, I prefer doing my own brass detailing. For you, it would probably be worthwhile as a learning opportunity, you'd get skills you'll keep using in the future and be glad you have those skills.

I trust myself, so do it myself, and always learn something in the process. No problem depriming and cleaning up crimped primer pockets..unless you for some reason are under time restraints.
It`s called HAND loading for a reason.

That being said, always more than one way to skin a cat.
Good luck.

Thanks guys for the feedback! I didn't think that about learning all those skills I'd be building from doing all that prep work on the brass! Plus you know it's once fired! Not to mention finding prepped brass is difficult and when you do, it's expensive.

As well as the crimp being intact I also cull any nickel plated primers. I have only ever seen brass primers on once fired LC brass.

So I used to buy 1000 ct bags of Top Brass prepped and primed (with CCI 41s) brass for under $150.00 per bag ... and I actually still have some of those stashed away for a rainy day. It was a helluva deal. For a long time I would buy a bag every other week on payday. Had so much I put some in a connex by my barn and forgot about it until just recently ... it was like finding money.

Those days are long gone.

These days I'll take all the milsurp brass I can get my hands on ... and I do get some via some military contacts at Bragg and Jackson and private contractor ranges where I still have friends up in North Carolina.

I do not mind prepping it myself in the least. Decapping, swageing or decrimping, trimming, sizing, wet tumbling ... I've got the right tools to do it all in short order.

I've come to really appreciate milsurp brass over the decades so ... yeah, it's worth doing IMHO.

Milspec primers are another story. I'm just under 10k remaining and beginning to panic a bit. And then there is the bullet issue.

Here's one piece of advice when it comes to milsurp brass ... learn to anneal.

NVhntr, Thank you for your tips!


SCRooster, Thank you! I look up youtube videos on how to anneal brass.

I bought several bags of new, unprimed LC a couple of years ago pretty cheaply, so I’m good for now. Also have a bunch of Fiocchi from their good ammo, but it’s a little heavier, so gets a bit less powder. Mostly I’m shooting that in my semi because I won’t mind so much if I lose some. LC is very nice, in 5.56 or 7.62.

That! Removing crimp and trimming isn’t a big deal. I use the Wilson tool in a battery powered drill to remove the crimp, use RCBS hand trimmer with power adapter and same drill to trim brass. I wouldn’t cost that much to get set up.

You don’t have to do 500 or a 1000 in the same day. I deprime them over several days, remove crimps, trim as I have time. I then clean them over several days too.

I’d trim 223 brass even for a bolt gun, you might end up using it in an AR. I loaded 500 pieces of once fired Speer brass for an AR, half wouldn’t chamber, had to shoot them up in a bolt gun.

I used to buy my Lake City brass from Brass Bombers and I seen that they went out of business. Going to have to find new supplier/vendor. Any suggestions or good vendors that you guys could recommend?

I live with thousands of 223 brass, that I pick up at my local range... within the last month, I've picked up over a thousand pieces over at our range, and that is under this plandemic / democRAT ran shortage, with everyone panic buying...

Annealing each time, separate in lots of 10 or 20 from the same manufacturer,
Lee Collet die and a body die for resizing and use a little prudence at the powder scale..

3 x 5 card in zip lock snack sized bag, keeps the history of each loading...

most of this brass, getting 40 plus reloads is no big deal... use it in bolt guns, as I'm not an AR type of guy...
as I figure some day, I'll see a bunch of cops in my yard here to confiscate them... that is bound to happen one day as long as we have democRATS
in office, as they are front runners to hand our nation over to the Chinese...

years ago, I had a bunch of left over cheap 55 gr FMJ bullets... after seeing something on Lapua's web site bout their brass,
I did an experiment... took 10 pieces of REmington 223 range pick up brass...

annealed them every 4th reload, a little prudence at the reload scale, neck sized with Lee Collet Die, and bumped shoulder back when needed with a body die.. with that experiment, I loaded that brass 101 times...

of course it started looking like Schitt, but it still functioned and was serviceable., with primer pockets still in good shape..

There were only 3 casualties, and that was from operator error at the reload bench...

The less you work the brass, the longer it will last, and annealing helps that out a lot... and now I do that each reload..

saw ScenarShooter does that, and if its good enough for Pat, its plenty good enough for Seafire..

Most still don’t load, so they let it lay. Both ranges I use collect and sell it, so I let it lay, except mine of course. It helps if I remember to color the end so mine stands out.

By the time loading equipment is easy to acquire again, ammo will be too, so the cycle will continue.

Thank you, hanco!

Thank you, Seafire!


Pappy348, Fortunately for us, most people don't reload/handload. I love it when I go to indoor shooting range and I ask the people next to me if they mind I pick up their brass. I try to mindful and not be too much of a brass hog because I know the indoor ranges make extra money on it. It's also part of the reason I switched over to shooting 9mm, I often come back from a shooting session with at least the same if not more brass than I came. Difficult to do with semiauto. I always seemed to lose between 10-20% of my 45acp brass! Revolvers don't have that issue with brass lose.

In any event, I'm looking forward to learning how to reload rifle brass!

I don't remember ever having to remove the primer crimp. Just haven't had problems. I use LC brass for lots of things. .223, .243, .308, .358 Winchester, and .300 BO. LC usually is heavy enough I have to drop the charges a bit. be Well, RZ.

Everything I shoot in my ARs is LC. Don't have any idea how many times it's been fired. But if I feel a primer go in a little too easy, that piece gets separated and fired once more and discarded.
Meanwhile I pick up a lot of range brass and process it just for fun and to stay away from the tv.
Anybody need some?

Folks make too big a deal out of the crimped primer pockets. When you trim the brass, you also chamfer the mouth, right? Well, when you do that, just turn the brass over, stick that chamfer tool up it’s backside, and give it a twist. It’s a one and done thing. Unless you have some means of crimping primers, it’ll never need doing again.