How do IMI and LC 5.56/223 brass compare to Lapua 223 in terms of case capacity, neck wall thickness uniformity, and overall toughness?

never weighed them, but for quality, and tough... I'd say Lapua is the best period.

But there is NO FLIES on any one of the three of them.

put a lot of miles on both LC and IMI cases....

Thanks for commenting.

lapua by a mile.

I tried making match brass out of commercial brass and it was futile. Bought 100 rounds of lapua .223 to shoot from my weatherby and groups shrunk immediately

Once prepped, I've had just as much luck out of LC cases as I have Lapua in AR's and a Tikka T3X. That being said, I've gotten past the point of only trying to make small groups of holes in paper, so the individual chasing tiny groups may see a benefit from Lapua cases.

I've found that LC cases, once you remove the primer crimps, uniform the primer pocket, debur the flash holes, and trim to the same OAL, they become very nice/consistent cases. I know some guys go as far as weighing/sorting cases, but I never have bothered.
Great thing is, you're not too heartbroken if you lose one on the range or in the field. In fact, I've had similar results with Win/WCC and PMC cases, at least once you do the prep work. Add a Wolf primer, 77gr SMK, and 23.8 TAC or 24gr Varget, and you will have a sub MOA load out of just about any decent rifle.

This^^ I like Lapua and it is way better out of the box, but after you properly prep your LC, FC, IMI, R-P or most any other brand, you will likely end up with good consistent loads. BTDT. I've been messing with range pickup brass for my AR's and easily shoot sub moa with all of them with FC and PMC brass I've found just laying there, ripe for the taking. The key is in brass prep. The only reason I bought the high dollar Lapua 223 rem brass was because I wanted the good stuff for my 6x45 loads.

Right now I`ve got about 1K range pick up cases, compliments of a friend. Most now are sorted by weight, brand, tumbled and preped. Funny part is that I never leave any of my fired stuff on the ground..it goes home with me. And as someone stated, out of my Mod. 12, I expect and get, excellent accuracy from which-ever bunch I choose to load.
A little work, maybe, but you only have to do it once.

250 pieces of new Norma 223 is on it’s way. A very kind fellow just mailed me 75 pieces new (old stock) mid 90’s era Fed gold medal match 223. I should try some Lapua just because it’s the gold standard, and to compare case capacities. I have a 1000 processed once fired LC 5.56 cases that I can sort out some good lots from.

I'm with Seafire. I have both IMI and LC batches, and those loads always shoot better than I can, I've had one pile of IMI that came out of a mixed lot from the old Paragon Surplus in Shotgun News. After I blasted those, I cleaned, FLed and prepped the IMI and it's been a staple batch of about 250 cases ever since, in fact, I don't remember ever losing a case from that pile, it's been so good, shot so well. That said, while I don't have 223 cases from Lapua, I have Lapua brass in three other calibers, and it ranks first or second best. I think you'll be fine with the Norma as well.

95% of my 223 brass is range pick up brass....

I even did an experiment once... regular primed Wolfe Metal cases..

10 range pick up brass pieces...

Loaded them 10 times.... first 5 times, light loads like Blue Dot, 4198 etc.

next 5 times, overloaded the crap out of them... they held together better than regular brass did....

did so just to test, "just in case" some other democRat like Obama was, got into office...

and guess what we have again......

I've won my fair share of local matches shooting one lot of Lapua brass, but I must say when sorting by weight, and then capacity I've found their cases vary more than "lesser " brands of brass. In Lapua I've used 221fb,223,22/250, and .308 , and believe it or not the 221 was the worst as far varying weights, and the .308 was the most uniform. I had/have some 1x fired PMC 223 brass a friend gave me that out of 1,000? cases I had maybe 10-15 outliers i culled and sorted the rest into qt baggie fulls lots. The worst ranged from 2-3/10's apart, and I ended up with several bags that were 1/10 apart , and a few that weighed exactly the same. Ya gotta bang the gas gun brass a few times in a bolt gun to straighten it out though.

One thing about it, here range brass is in good supply. I've brought this up before and some guys won't pick up brass just laying there for the taking, like it is the plague. Some here have said you can't trust it. That may be true if you don't know what you are looking at. I rarely pick up range brass anymore, now that I have a good supply of it, but that is the only reason. I remember picking up a chit ton of it in one range trip. That was enough to supply me for quite a few years. Something like 1,000 FC once fired and close to the same amount of PMC. Back when PMC bronze ammo was cheap. One thing I liked about that brass was I did not have to swage the primer pockets. I've found both the PMC and FC to be good quality brass. The FC is likely the same exact chidt as LC, since Federal had the military contract for quite some time. As we know, not all federal brass is created equal, but if it has the scamp marks it is likely good stuff:

Since no one has mentioned FC brass with scamp marks. Something to keep an eye out for. ^^

I know I've been pretty happy with this batch of range pickup from about 4 years ago. Still using it and it's still going strong. This was one of the first groups I fired with that range pick up brass:


Then with my Northtech Defense:


And then more recently with the same rifle and load:


And then with my new BCM. Load with that FC range pick up brass still working pretty good:

It's hard to complain about something that works so well.

That’s pretty awesome!

Never seen FC with those dot marks, would love to know what it was in the first place. My experience with scrounged pickup Federal (not Gold Medal) has left me thinking Federal from gas guns is really prone to rim tear-offs when FL sizing, plus neck cracking. I got around that by changing my methods, always FL sizing "new used" Federal with the decapper and ball gone from the die so I could punch it out WHEN needed, not if. But after that, and a decent annealing, FC has been fine both as gas-rifle brass and as stock for forming "more" 221 FB brass (which is a pain).
PMC has also been a "good find" or was, when it was plentiful. For the most part, it seems almost any 223 brass can work out just fine if it's given a good prep (including using a pick to feel for the "Base Ring of Doom" plus a weight sort for the "outliers."

They're essentially Lake City hulls used for LE Tac units of course marked FC instead of LC and 223 instead of 5.56.

Much tougher than Federal factory fodder.

The brass fairy left about 500 rounds laying around at the range yesterday, that I picked up and brought home...

Half of it is getting loving care in the tumbler right now... the other half will get theirs this afternoon...

Remington and Lake City.

There used to be a lot of the SCAMP marked FC like that lying on the ground range here, all I have weighed is in the same weight spread as LC. I have stash of it for a rainy day.

FC without SCAMP all got turned into .300 Blk and I pay close attention to how easily the primer seats.

Our local LE rents some of the pits at our local range for training. The trick is to get in there the next day and clean up after them.

Over 5k pieces and counting.

All processed and ready to load.

Thats how you do it. When the secret service uses our range, they don't leave anything behind, but when the police and sheriff's department use it for training or quals, they leave all their brass for us to pick up. We also have a local manufacturing plant use our range for load development. I like it when he comes, because he leaves once fired starline brass for us to have.