.223 Lake City Brass To Thick

[dolek]

One piece of brass,tons of speculation...waste of time if the OP has no proof yet . Waste of time. OP knew something was not right and still decided to load it and shoot it...and then all of a sudden the McBillion pieces of LC brass spread all over the world is too thick.

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

One piece of brass,tons of speculation...waste of time if the OP has no proof yet . Waste of time. OP knew something was not right and still decided to load it and shoot it...and then all of a sudden the McBillion pieces of LC brass spread all over the world is too thick.

Yes I knew there was something wrong at the start. It was not just one case, it was about 5 out of fifty. It was stamped with the year 14 on it. I decided to test one of the loads. I then posted the results as a warning to others. It was probably stupid of me to make the test in the first place but I did it anyway Curiosity killed the cat but I was lucky this time so I still have 8 lives left.

Like others, I have been using Lake city brass for years and never had a problem before. What I learned from this is that if it doesn't look right don't use it. Like most of us, I load 50 rounds at a time with powder. I then check each with a small flashlight to make sure all have powder in them.

If you think the information is useless, then pay not attention to it. Why ridicule someone who had a bad experience and related it for others as a warning to be careful. There are many who use a progressive press and never see the level of powder in their cases.

In closing, having been stupid enough to knowing run this test, I would have been remiss in my duty to others by not posting the results. I got lucky. Someone else might not be so fortunate.

 

[dolek]

So what FACT did you find after firing one load ?

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

So what FACT did you find after firing one load ?

read the rest of the post.

 

[Metal God]

Those that are running there QL estimates. The op calculated 2.4 grains less in h20 volume in the blown primers as compared to the others that fired fine . Not sure where you all were getting your less then a grain of difference.

I’m a strong believer in LC brass and will continue to use it . This does not mean I’ll ignore the OP results . Although not with LC cases I had a similar experience with mixed cases . I was loading up some plinking ammo when i noticed a few cases would almost over flow the case while others were at the base of the neck . Those cases that almost overflowed were CBC cases . I also fired the the cbc cases and averaged 100fps faster velocities. I have my notes on this somewhere and think my case volume difference was 1.6gr . I was also using a light bullet 55gr with a slow-ish powder IMR 4320 . Which likely helped keep peak pressure controlled rather then spiking .

What powder and bullet weight did the OP use would be nice to know ?

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

77 gr Sierra HPBT with 24.5 gr CFE 223. That's .2 of a grain more than the Hornady book recommends. It is the load I always use in this rifle and have never had a problem.

 

[joshb]

77 gr Sierra HPBT with 24.5 gr CFE 223. That's .2 of a grain more than the Hornady book recommends. It is the load I always use in this rifle and have never had a problem.

NICK!! .2 grains over? I’m astonished! A man with your background bending the rules! The horror!

You want to go shooting sometime soon?
I can “hot load” my 45/70 and we can have some real fun!

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

NICK!! .2 grains over? I’m astonished! A man with your background bending the rules! The horror!

You want to go shooting sometime soon?
I can “hot load” my 45/70 and we can have some real fun!

Josh
I am always ready to go shooting. Just need a few days notice to load some ammo. Not available the next two Tuesdays though.

 

[tomswede]

Those that are running there QL estimates. The op calculated 2.4 grains less in h20 volume in the blown primers as compared to the others that fired fine . Not sure where you all were getting your less then a grain of difference.

I’m a strong believer in LC brass and will continue to use it . This does not mean I’ll ignore the OP results . Although not with LC cases I had a similar experience with mixed cases . I was loading up some plinking ammo when i noticed a few cases would almost over flow the case while others were at the base of the neck . Those cases that almost overflowed were CBC cases . I also fired the the cbc cases and averaged 100fps faster velocities. I have my notes on this somewhere and think my case volume difference was 1.6gr . I was also using a light bullet 55gr with a slow-ish powder IMR 4320 . Which likely helped keep peak pressure controlled rather then spiking .

What powder and bullet weight did the OP use would be nice to know ?

2.4 grains of water translates to about 19 grains of brass, I just never found anything close to that a heavy 223 case. LC is about 93 grains so a about 23% heavier.

 

[sw282]

Cases were cleaned with an ultrasonic cleaner and primer pockets were clean

l have found tumbling/cleaning cases with steel pins does a better job than walnut media or Ultrasonic bath...After cases being pin cleaned its impossible for me to tell them from New/Unfired factory brass. ymmv.

 

[AJC]

One takeaway for me is to weigh cases not for huge accuracy expectations, but to look for dangerous outliers.

 

[alb]

I've seen this myself on one LC case out of what must have been many thousands of them. In my case, the web was substantially thicker, but the case was in other respects to spec.

While I'm reasonably confident that I'd have noticed the issue when charging powder, as my charges are pretty much full case volume, so I'd have noticed the crunch, I found it via use of the Dillion 600 swager, which wouldn't close on the case. That's due to the design of the swager; if the web is too thick, it won't close.

It's for that reason I've never used anything but the Dillon since for military crimp removal.

 

[Ned Ludd]

I think there are a couple important takeaways from this thread. First, if you charge a bunch of cases with the same weight of powder and some are filled way up into the neck and some aren't, I wouldn't recommend stuffing a bullet into all of them and shooting them. Find out what is happening FIRST, by determining the water volume of a few each of the high/low powder fill cases. There's simply no good reason to risk it when you make an observation such as this before seating bullets, when it's still easy to dump out the powder and see what's going on.

Second, brass internal volume decreases as case weight increases. No matter how many reloader want to jump in here and say it doesn't, I'm sorry, but they're dead wrong. If you weigh enough cases and determine internal volume like I do, you will find that there will always be a few outliers, but the general trend of heavier brass = less internal volume is always true. So then the question becomes, "What can you do about it?"

Weighing cases will not allow you to state with any certainty exactly what the internal case volume is. This is because there are always outliers as I mentioned above, so it just doesn't work that way. What it does allow you to do is to sort cases by weight into something like "heavy", "medium", and "light" groups, for which any individual group will have less internal volume variance than un-sorted cases. Pretty simple really. I suspect had Nick done that, he would have been able to segregate the cases with noticeably lower internal volume into a distinct group, and realized immediately that they would require a separate load workup (i.e. charge weight testing) from the lighter cases in the batch.

In my hands with Lapua brass, the overall internal volume (and weight) variance within a single Lot of brass is not large enough to warrant (or necessitate) a separate load development step. If there is sufficient volume (or weight) variance in a certain brand or Lot of brass to make you suspect there might be a problem, you should certainly determine internal water volume of a few cases at the extremes (i.e. lightest versus heaviest) so you know for sure, then segregate if necessary. By the same reasoning, you can load up a few light/heavy cases (i.e. putatively larger internal volume/lesser internal volume) with a reduced charge weight that will be safe regardless of the internal volume, then fire them and measure velocity. The velocity measurements will be a good surrogate for pressure. If there is a noticeable difference, you can then easily decide how much charge weight needs to be reduced in the cases with smaller internal volume (heaviest weight group).

 

[AJC]

I think there are a couple important takeaways from this thread. First, if you charge a bunch of cases with the same weight of powder and some are filled way up into the neck and some aren't, I wouldn't recommend stuffing a bullet into all of them and shooting them. Find out what is happening FIRST, by determining the water volume of a few each of the high/low powder fill cases. There's simply no good reason to risk it when you make an observation such as this before seating bullets, when it's still easy to dump out the powder and see what's going on.

Second, brass internal volume decreases as case weight increases. No matter how many reloader want to jump in here and say it doesn't, I'm sorry, but they're dead wrong. If you weigh enough cases and determine internal volume like I do, you will find that there will always be a few outliers, but the general trend of heavier brass = less internal volume is always true. So then the question becomes, "What can you do about it?"

Weighing cases will not allow you to state with any certainty exactly what the internal case volume is. This is because there are always outliers as I mentioned above, so it just doesn't work that way. What it does allow you to do is to sort cases by weight into something like "heavy", "medium", and "light" groups, for which any individual group will have less internal volume variance than un-sorted cases. Pretty simple really. I suspect had Nick done that, he would have been able to segregate the cases with noticeably lower internal volume into a distinct group, and realized immediately that they would require a separate load workup (i.e. charge weight testing) from the lighter cases in the batch.

In my hands with Lapua brass, the overall internal volume (and weight) variance within a single Lot of brass is not large enough to warrant (or necessitate) a separate load development step. If there is sufficient volume (or weight) variance in a certain brand or Lot of brass to make you suspect there might be a problem, you should certainly determine internal water volume of a few cases at the extremes (i.e. lightest versus heaviest) so you know for sure, then segregate if necessary. By the same reasoning, you can load up a few light/heavy cases (i.e. putatively larger internal volume/lesser internal volume) with a reduced charge weight that will be safe regardless of the internal volume, then fire them and measure velocity. The velocity measurements will be a good surrogate for pressure. If there is a noticeable difference, you can then easily decide how much charge weight needs to be reduced in the cases with smaller internal volume (heaviest weight group).

If your dealing with huge batches, when you find a group of outliers why even try and process them. If I had 500 and 5 were significantly different I would just trash them. The cost of doing business

 

[Ned Ludd]

If your dealing with huge batches, when you find a group of outliers why even try and process them. If I had 500 and 5 were significantly different I would just trash them. The cost of doing business

You could certainly do that, if you were willing to weigh and/or measure case volume to identify all of them. In my hands, Lapua brass sorted from lightest to heaviest might be worth 10 fps or so for .308 Win, possibly as much as 25 to 30 fps for .223 Rem. Sorting by weight is the simplest and easiest method in my hands for obtaining more uniform case volume within a given weight sort group. Obviously it's not perfect, i.e. the "outliers", but it can routinely cut case volume variance within a single weight group by as much as 1/3 to 1/2 over cases that aren't sorted by weight at all. I will typically use the heaviest weight group for the first match of the day when it's colder, if there is a predicted temperature swing of 30+ degrees during the course of the day. It has worked pretty well for me. The really extreme outliers (of which there can always be a few) I typically use for foulers, where I don't really care about pressure/velocity so much as it always takes 2 to 4 shots for the barrel to settle in, anyhow. So I don't see a great need to toss even the extreme outliers, but you certainly could if you didn't have any use for them whatsoever.

 

[jb]

I was loading some once fired LC .223 brass the other day. I very carefully measured powder charges and noticed that many were filling the case to the top and others were just at the bottom of the neck. After dumping the powder back int the scale pan, the weight was still dead accurate. I then measured the cases and found the neck thickness was the same and the outside of the case measured the same at every point along the case.

I decided to test both cases at the range. Those that appeared to be loaded to the lower level fired perfectly and gave good tight groups. I fired just one of the other rounds and blew the primer, which wrapped itself around the firing pin and was very difficult to remove.

Now I was under the impression that Lake City brass was made to very close tolerances, because it is used by the military. All the brass came from the same batch and markings indicated it was made in 2014.

No more Lake City for me. I can't imagine the increase of over pressure this caused. I have never had a primer do this in the past. The rifle is a home built AR 15, with a fluted heave bull barrel and has always grouped extremely well and has fired several one hole groups. I will split the case today and measure the thickness. I am betting it is way out of spec.