Comparison of 223 Remington Brass for AR-15 Service Rifle

[BillC79]

In the past, I have shot Across-the-Course high power matches with my AR-15 using Lapua brass. Since Lapua brass has been in short supply, I compared characteristics of several other brands of brass to find a replacement. A summary of my findings is in the two data panels and graph below. Methods used are described on a website: HERE

Comments/ suggestions for improvement are appreciated.

 

[MisterHelix]

Outstanding work. Thanks Bill.

(Edit: I will keep using Lake City for a while)

 

[mac86951]

Excellent!

What year was your lake city and/or was it sorted?

next question is one of brass lifetime;
What's your major brass loss, 1 neck splits; 2 primer pockets; 3 weeds n bushes?

 

[jelenko]

Were there differences in group sizes based on the different brands of brass? Did you use the same powder charge for different brands of brass?

 

[BillC79]

What year was your lake city and/or was it sorted?

next question is one of brass lifetime;
What's your major brass loss, 1 neck splits; 2 primer pockets; 3 weeds n bushes?

LC15. Details are available in the website linked to in the first post.

I only have detailed experience on brass life with Lapua, PPU and Lake City.

I start getting neck splits (I anneal brass for each reload) as follows:
Lapua (after 8 or 9 reloads). No primer pocket failures by 12
PPU (after 5 or 6 reloads) No primer pocket failures by 6.
Lake City (after 4 or 5 reloads). Primer pocket failures start after 3 reloads.

Addendum:
During the test, the following brass brands had loose primer pockets after one firing and resizing cycle and had primers blow out during the second firing:
Norma HP Sweden (3 of 20 shots primer blow outs)
Nosler (2 of 20 shots primer blow outs)

 

[BillC79]

Were there differences in group sizes based on the different brands of brass? Did you use the same powder charge for different brands of brass?

I used a charge that gave me optimal 200 yard accuracy with Lapua brass in my rifle: 22.2gr AR-Comp with CCI 41 primers. Comparing group size with different brass probably would be invalid after seeing the difference in velocities with the same charge. Powder charge would need to optimized for each brass. I suspect that PPU brass is going to require the least amount of adjustment of charge to get optimal performance.

 

[nbkky71]

is 42.2gr a typo? Sounds like a bit much for a 223 case. My normal load is 22.4gr ARCOMP with a Nosler 77 and a CCI450

 

[mac86951]

Excellent thank you!

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

If you can find some Sig brass it would be interesting to see where it lands in your study chart.

 

[flyingbrass]

Thanks for posting your data. Very interesting. I appreciate your level of detail, including the description on your methods page of how you filled cases with water to determine volume. Without that info, "full of water" can be quite subjective. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any mention of the sample sizes. How many of each case did you test?

I don't shoot service rifle, but our loading goals are similar except I want to stay at magazine length.

 

[BillC79]

is 42.2gr a typo?

Thank you. It was a typo which I have corrected.

 

[BillC79]

How many of each case did you test?

Twenty (n=20) for each data point.

 

[BillC79]

If you can find some Sig brass it would be interesting to see where it lands in your study chart.

Thank you for the suggestion.
I grabbed all of the brand samples of brass I could get at the start of the test with the idea that I would choose a brand to use as a Lapua replacement for my XTC matches for the next year or two. Neither Remington brass nor Sig brass were available. I have enough new PPU brass and old military range pick up brass on hand (LC08 vintage) to get me through the next year or two of matches.

 

[LVLAaron]

Sig was really excellent brass. 5 years ago you could buy as much as you could haul from Cabelas in all the common sizes. Haven't seen it since.