Anyone here use 308 Lake City brass?
- Thread starter Joe R
- Start date
CatShooter
Joe R said:
Very good brass. Size it with a small base die (At least for the first time), and anneal it and all the normal prep crap.
The only better is Lapua and Norma.
Don't sort by year (it means nothing), sort by weight.
I am with catshooter, lake city is really good and I also anneal before sizing but you MUST decap first just in case there is a live one.
CatShooter
Joe R said:
Maybe your primers - they are not all the same size.
I bought 1,200 pieces of Lapua and they are great.
I use LC10 and it is also weight sorted, but I only use them in my LR-308 sem-auto rifle. Brass lasts A LONG time. You got to remove the military crimp, which is easy for me since I have a super swager.
And...the brass was cheap. You got to cull through the machine gun brass though and ones that looked overly abused, but you still end up with a good amount.
I don't anneal them. Once they split, I'll just chuck since Im using it in an AR platform.
And...the brass was cheap. You got to cull through the machine gun brass though and ones that looked overly abused, but you still end up with a good amount.
I don't anneal them. Once they split, I'll just chuck since Im using it in an AR platform.
Joe, the primers if you look close will have what looks like a ring of brass all the way around the edge of the pocket and if you don't swage them to squish it out of the way , you wont be able to seat your primer. You can take an rcbs chamfer tool and cut a chamfer till you can prime them. I have done that for 30 years and in my estimation is the easiest way to rid the brass of that problem. You don't need to go deep but I chuck up the rcbs tool in a holder and use a drill to power it and it takes just a second to remove it permanently.
Why are you trying to compare Federal in the same conversation with Lapua? Federal has been known for decades as soft brass. People report expanded primer pockets after one use, and that's in Gold Medal Match. If that is what your impression of brass is based on you can go to Winchester and get much better primer pocket life as long as you don't overload the stuff. Not many people I know that concentrate on long range scores shoot LC brass, only one guy I know does but he does a lot of work to it. I'd rather just pull Lapua out of the box and load it. I have over 10 reloads on most of my Lapua brass.Joe R said:
Joe R
Gold $$ Contributor
Please don't take offense because the Lapua didn't work for me. Maybe I gave up too easily, but I have another 1,500 F210M primers to use.
I have been using FGMM brass for 3 years I'm on my 7th reload, I turn the necks and anneal them. I've never had any issues with them and their primer pockets were tighter then the Lapua was as virgin brass. That may be because the F210M primers are not the "right" primers to use with Lapua brass. My only mistake was that I assumed I would be happy with the Lapua and I gave away 1,000 of my cases. Now I regret doing that. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometime.
Maybe if CatShooter tells me which are the "right" primers to use with the Lapua, when I run out of the F210M I'll swith back to Lapua.
Kindest regards,
Joe
CatShooter
Joe R...
I use Rem 9-1/2 and CCI BR-2's I stopped using Federal primers long ago.
I use Rem 9-1/2 and CCI BR-2's I stopped using Federal primers long ago.
Yetiman
Boom boom boom boom, Hey HEY !
Good info here, Thank You.
I was recently given a bag of 250 of these from a friends estate. They had the primer pockets swaged already, had been uniformly trimmed and were in really nice condition. I was going to put them on the shelf, but now may sort them and give them a load for knock around ammo where I don't want to use my good stuff.
I was recently given a bag of 250 of these from a friends estate. They had the primer pockets swaged already, had been uniformly trimmed and were in really nice condition. I was going to put them on the shelf, but now may sort them and give them a load for knock around ammo where I don't want to use my good stuff.
The tool you have Joe will work but be careful it doesn't roll up a burr.
Back in my days of shooting an M1-A we'd shoot LC Match - the old M118 round (no primer crimp) at 200 and 300yds, but typically used IMI or Win at 600yds. You could get away with shooting LC Match brass once at 600yds, but after that, your scores with an M1-A at 600 would suffer.
Guys shooting it in bolt guns didn't seem to have an issue.
Guys shooting it in bolt guns didn't seem to have an issue.
Maybe this has already been said but it is important to know that this brass has not been fired in a machine gun. I can not say first hand but have heard from many sources that the machine gun stretches the brass to the point that you can get case separations on the first reloading. I have shot a lot of LC Match brass in the M14 and 308 bolt gun and it works well and the LC ball brass is the same stuff with just a different head stamp so it is good brass if it has not been abused.
joshb
Gold $$ Contributor
I bought 3K of 308 and 3 K of 223 from Brass Bombers. L C once fired cleaned, deprimed and swaged, for pretty cheap. They also sell long range stuff which isn't crimped, but it goes fast. So far for me, it's done well. The long range stuff is used from bolt guns. The stuff I got was fired in a machine gun and was pretty blown out. IE harder to size. I have 4 firings on some, through my Remmy bolt guns, with no separations for the 308. I had 1 separation with the 223, on my first firing.
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