I have access to some LC 18 brass. Picked them up at the range since I am trapped in my house. I have lots of time. Is it worth my time to recondition vs commercial 223 Rem.

I have had better luck with LC brass than I have with commercial, I get better longevity out of it and the price is right. The only down side is that sometimes range pickup brass has been fired in an rifle with an excessively large chamber and it does size down enough at the base to chamber in a smaller chamber - in that case just toss that piece.
Get a primer pocket reamer that fits into an electric drill and it makes opening the primer pockets quick and easy.

drover

I am certain this stuff was used in an AR but I am going to give it a chance. Have tried to recondition 20 rounds just to try out on my savage bolt

I re-conditioned about 500 pcs of LC brass about 8 or 9 years ago and at the time I thought it was a pain in the azz. Been using that brass ever since. It’s probably been reloaded at least ten times. I’ll have to check my records. It was well worth the pain!

I'd rather use LC than any of the mass produced commercial brass, well worth the slight hassle of removing the primer crimp and I have yet to find any I couldn't size to fit my bolt gun. Hornady primer pocket reamer is the cheap and easy way to remove crimps:

https://www.amazon.com/Hornady-390750-Primer-Pocket-Reamer/dp/B000NOORPW/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Hornady+041203+Primer+Pocket+Reamer%2C+Small&qid=1589817838&sr=8-2

Chuck it into an electric drill.

I have used LC from the 70s and 80s and like it . I do not know how the recent brass is .

I picked up some LC 3o8 recently with a 2014 headstamp. I have not tried it yet.

Sure is.

Real LC brass is good stuff.

Lake City brass is almost always worth the scrounge, and then the case prep if you have a decent size batch.
I've still got some LC 76 Bicentennial nickel brass that had a hard life before I got it. It's rubbed to nothing, but my, the cases that could still hold a primer when I first got the stuff, they still shoot GREAT.

like the rest of the guys that have spoke up for LC brass....
I'll support their assessment 100 %...

As Last Round said, he'd expect 10 reloads out of them?
I anneal mine every time I reload it now a days.. from reading some of Scenar Shooters posts on his brass prep..

I shoot a lot of 223 and ALL in bolt guns...

out of Lake City, I expect way beyond 50 reloads..and I've got bunches of batches that have seen that many reloads..
I just am a little frugal on the powder scale, and that helps out a lot.. I don't need max velocity for varmint shooting or target shooting..I am usually shooting 223 from 50 to 300 yds on small varmints or targets... I've got 22.250s if I think I need more..

I've picked up most of mine over at the range...currently there seems to be an abundance of LC 17 and 19 out this way...

I purchased a Dillion Pocket Swager from one of the campfire members ( hanco) from down in Texas..
that is what i use to remove the primer pocket crimp.. one of the most useful auxiliary tools on my load bench...

once upon a time, I decided to test out how many times you could reload a case.. so I took 10 Remington pieces of range brass, and with 1000 55 gr FMJ bullets, I loaded those 10 cases 100 times each...annealing every 4th round...and using Lee Neck Sizer for the neck and a Redding Body die for the shoulder, as needed.. I kept the powder charge in the range of 40 to 45,000 CUP..

those cases are in a zip lock bag around here somewhere.. they look kinda ratty, but they've been reloaded 102 times now...
powder charge on each was 13.5 grains of Blue Dot...

I'd expect LC to give me better service life span than the Remington....

As far as being tough brass, I've haven't found anything better when considering it can be had in bulk. Occasionally, it can be bought new with no swaged primer pockets which is even better. In the accuracy department, it's allowed hits out to 500-600 yards on targets and prairie dogs. That's good enough for me.

Yep I like Lake City....and it doesn't have to be LC 18...

If 5.56/223 brass was fired in a loose chamber run the brass through a 38/357 carbide die with the decapping rod removed to squeeze the case base. You can run 308 & 30-06 brass through a carbide 45acp die. My RCBS 45 die is too shallow for 30-06 brass so I bought a Hornady carbide die and had the top bored through. Thanks to friend Steve Timm for this tip.

Lee's .380 FCD and Bulge Buster kit works even better (.45 ACP for ..308). Pushes the case all the way through to size lower than the normal pistol sizer.

strut64: so they are range pickups. What was the load that they were loaded with when they were fired?? Was it a 45,000 psi load or a 90,000 psi?

If it was LC factory loaded, it was bout a 63k PSI load.

Yep...do it. Got a bunch loaded now with 53 grners for PD`s. Range pick-up..consistent good quality. I clean up the primer pocket with a case deburring tool in my electric drill...goes quick, and I only have to do it once.

I bought 750 new, unprimed LC cases; no futzing with decrimping or prep. Load and go.

A while back a well-known brass scrounger at our club ruined his upper with a head separation. So much for saving money. At least his lovely complexion wasn't marred.

I really like LC brass and recently I got a bunch the 18 as well. It is worth the time to resize it and cut out the primer pocket. If you have a drill press just chuck your chamfer tool in it and cut out the crimp. It only takes a touch and it's gone. There are tools that are specifically designed for that job but I have done hundreds (thousands) with the chamfer tool and a drill press. Drover is right about an over sized chamber but I usually find I put a pressure dent in the shoulder squeezing it down so far if it's stretched brass. (mostly machine gun brass) It will shoot anyway. LC brass grows more after the first couple of shots because it has some extra material in the case. I use a Crow World's Finest Trimmer (WFT) to keep the length in check after every load.

kwg

Another fan of LC here. There may have been some other head stamp on my 223 ammo over the years. I don't remember it, though.

Everything that goes through my ARs is LC only. Doesn't matter what year.

Got buckets of the stuff.

Still using some LC ‘67, I don’t know how many times it’s been reloaded. Minimum resized and used in the same bolt gun. It’s like the energizer bunny, it just keeps going.

When I buy used 223/5.56 brass its going to be LC brass with crimped primers,then I know it's once fired. I agree with others that it's better than commercial brass that I've bought.

When I started reloading in the 90s, I remember Midway carried it prepped by a company called Starched or someothing to that effected based out of Colorado....primer pocket had the military crimp redone, it was all tumbled to a real clean shiny finish....

price was $35.00 per thousand....AHHH.. the good old days...bulk 55 grain FMJ and SP bullets were $35.00 per thousand also..

I remember it was cheap to load the 223, than it was to buy 22 Mag rounds... which were like $7.99 for 50 rounds...

wish that shipped hadn't sailed....

yep

I use LC in 223...223 AI....20 Practical......even reformed to 20 Vartarg

WCC is just as good too.....

Things are going to go to hell at Lake City !!! Winchester just took over the running of LC for the government With Winchesters 80yr history of discontinuing cartridge's they will most likely want to discontinuing making 5.56x45 NATO and 50cal BMG.

I'd be willing to buy a couple hundred rounds of once fired LC for a reasonable price if you have a bunch.

Thanks.

Frank Shaw

PM sent

Got what I needed. Thanks very much to all.

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Frank