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.223 brass ID

Can someone identify the maker of this 223 brass? all help appreciated!
thank you
 

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I would like to ID the following 223 brass ONLY for curiosity sake . I reload mostly range find brass and I have not found an iota of difference between the different name brands. I see some guys brag about getting Lapua or Lake City brass. I don't know if they are trying to impress the readers or just feeding their over inflated egos. The head stamps are as follows- LC 17 ,-LC18- ,LC22 ,all with 5 punch marks and a circle with a + in it. ( LAKE CITY ? ) -- FC with 3 or 5 punch marks. - - GFL. -- USA with a triangle or arrowhead ? -- FRONTIER 5.56 mm with 3 punch marks. - - PSD with a 2 and a 1 ( only cases that don't have 223 rem stamped on them).-- R punch mark P. If you can't help me out don't bother me with drivel. Phantom Phixer
 
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LC - lake City
FC - Federal
GFL - Fiochi
R P - Remington
PMC - Precision Made Cartridge
PSD - Poongsan Metal Manufacturing Co.
PPU - Prvi Partizan (Serbia)

The “P’s” are common and people confuse them.
 
This was website was posted in another forum but I have found it very useful : Cartridgecollectors.org/headstamp-codes/
 
Thank you all for the timely response's As I said in my post I find 0 difference between the different brand names. I pick up range brass on BLM land. Some guys bring their AR's out and pump 100's of rounds of 223 or 5.56 brass and just leave it lay so I pick it up. I am an avid prairie dog hunter so I reload very carefully because they are hard for me to hit ( at 79 years old I'm not so good any more ) at 200+ yards. Thanks again. May you have fair winds and following seas. Phantom Phixer
 
The biggest issue with Range Brass is no knowing its previous use/abuse. It takes a little more time doing QC/inspection checking for potential issues. Any case that looks off gets tossed.... its free so no tears. After initial cleaning/tumbling, I anneal all of the cases before attempting to resize. Any loose primers or cases that are difficult to resize get tossed. After all your case prep work then you have brass that is perfect for plinking or field use.

The only major differences remaining are case capacity, neck wall thickness (neck tension) and primer pockets uniformity (ignition). :) This can be addressed by sorting brass by headstamp, and also testing loads to make certain that your desired load is good in all cases (not suddenly compressed because different case volume). If you have access to large volume of brass then you can be more selective about which headstamps you want to keep.
 
The biggest issue with Range Brass is no knowing its previous use/abuse. It takes a little more time doing QC/inspection checking for potential issues. Any case that looks off gets tossed.... its free so no tears. After initial cleaning/tumbling, I anneal all of the cases before attempting to resize. Any loose primers or cases that are difficult to resize get tossed. After all your case prep work then you have brass that is perfect for plinking or field use.

The only major differences remaining are case capacity, neck wall thickness (neck tension) and primer pockets uniformity (ignition). :) This can be addressed by sorting brass by headstamp, and also testing loads to make certain that your desired load is good in all cases (not suddenly compressed because different case volume). If you have access to large volume of brass then you can be more selective about which headstamps you want to keep.
Have you found if it’s worth the time to run the bent paper clip down the case to check for case separation, or will the primers pockets get loose first?
 
Some one dumping hundreds of rounds on BLM is most likely a non reloader. They buy it by the case and shoot it by the half case(locally anyway). If it still has the primer crimp, it should be good to go. If it doesn't have the tell tell sign on the case, I don't waste time with the paper clip. Another sign of reloaded brass is if it has a chamfer on the inside of the neck. This is sure sign its been reloaded, but blasters usually skip this step.
 
Has anyone used CBC headstamped 5.56 mm brass to reload? I have a few buckets of it that came from an AR manufacturer that was used to test newly built rifles.

The problem with the brass, is that the primer pocket is too short to reset new primers without them sticking up past the base of the case. We all know that can lead to slamfires when the bolt is dropped/closed.

The primer pocket is only 0.105 deep on average on these cases & needs to be 0.120 to allow for the primer to be recessed into the base of the case.
 
Have you found if it’s worth the time to run the bent paper clip down the case to check for case separation, or will the primers pockets get loose first?
No. If I have any concern about a case (range brass) then I just toss it. I have access to fair amount of range brass at my local range so I am fairly selective and less willing to put in the prep work for an "iffy" case. Anything that looks funny I toss without giving it a second thought.... deep nicks or gouges, bent rims, missing primers, heavy extractor swipes, deep dents, swelling, or scratches around the case circumference. Gone Gone Gone

I believe that you can identify a case separation before it happens. After cleaning the brass (step 1), I probably toss 10% of cases based on visual inspection. Throughout the rest of case prep steps I am constantly inspecting the case looking for any type of banding that circumnavigates the lower 1/3 of the case. This includes (1) dulled brass band resulting from case sticking to chamber wall and then being dragged out during extraction or a (2) thin line (shinny or shadow line). I have never experienced a case separation and I use a lot of range brass. My process has worked for me so far... :)
 
The head stamps are as follows- LC 17 ,-LC18- ,LC22 ,all with 5 punch marks and a circle with a + in it. ( LAKE CITY ? ) -- FC with 3 or 5 punch marks.

I have heard (unconfirmed) that the punch marks/dots allow traceability back to the individual machine that formed the brass. The circle/cross is a stamp showing that it was manufactured to NATO standards.
 
I have heard (unconfirmed) that the punch marks/dots allow traceability back to the individual machine that formed the brass. The circle/cross is a stamp showing that it was manufactured to NATO standards.
Thanks for the info. I pick up so much BLM range brass (223 & 5.56) that I can be really picky about what I keep. The LC once fired brass is easy to spot due to the insane primer crimp on them. I touch a 5/16th drill bit to the top of the pocket to clean up the flashing off the top of the primer pocket ( depriming causes this ) and then use my reamer to finish off. May you have fair winds and following seas. Phantom Phixer
 

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