Lake City brass improvement/prep
- Thread starter jlorenzo
- Start date
L.Sherm
Silver $$ Contributor
Have you tried just swaging PP and shooting same headstamp see what the target says?
Gonna dictate what accuracy your after too.
I have just been through sorting several thousand LC cases, so I speak from recent experience.
First, not all LC is worth the effort. Only LC NATO (circle and cross) is worth the trouble. The case heads are work hardened by double striking. It is the only brass I am aware of that is actually tougher than Lapua, and on a par with Alpha (Alpha also double strikes case heads, but they don't make any .378 dia family cases).
Next, use a swaging die (I use RCBS) to remove the crimp. If the case sticks on the swaging mandrel, it's good to go. If it falls off, the primer pocket is too big, chuck it in the recycle bin. Under no circumstances ream pockets, this removes metal where it is needed most. Swaging makes the pockets stronger. Discard any cases that have the semi-circular "ejector swipe", as that indicates they have experienced overpressure.
The most important step for accuracy is to sort by WEIGHT, which can vary +/- 2gr or more. Trim to uniform length after F/L resizing before weighing.
Sorting by year of production is a total waste of time, as weights vary greatly even in the same year (many production lines).
If you had to remove the crimp, that means they are once fired and there is no need to anneal. If there was no crimp, anneal.
These will last a very long time, as long as you don't overload them, and are capable of superb accuracy.
L.Sherm
Silver $$ Contributor
I disagree with this, if you use a chamfer tool for inside necks then yeah but the one that is used to just remove the crimp has no downside at all.
I use one and I dony run my stuff on the light side and I haven't lost a case any different than when I swaged all my military brass. It comes down to using the right tool for the job.
If they all came out of the factory case or can I bought them in yeah that date matters and they should all be from the same lot/run.
I know they are once fired because I was the guy that fired them the first time.
I shoot exclusively LC brass in my 223 AI.....I tried different tricks such as weight and head stamp sorting. In the end I gave up on all that due to no real measurable improvements in accuracy. Now all my 223 AI brass is largely LC with a few other factory cases mixed in.....The prairie dogs never know the difference.
I might just be a rookie compared to some of these guys. But 30 years of reloading and varmint hunting have given me some pretty good insight as to what works and what doesn't. That 2,000 count bag of milsurp 5.56 brass I bought 10+ years ago has served me very well.
P.S. I'm a brass snob too.....imagine that. Love my Lapua and Norma
I might just be a rookie compared to some of these guys. But 30 years of reloading and varmint hunting have given me some pretty good insight as to what works and what doesn't. That 2,000 count bag of milsurp 5.56 brass I bought 10+ years ago has served me very well.
P.S. I'm a brass snob too.....imagine that. Love my Lapua and Norma
Give them a proper annealing job.
I like to deburr the flash holes and turn the necks. Trim to a consistent length. Weight sort only after doing any process that's removing material (e.g. flash hole uniforming, deburring flash holes. trimming or neck turning necks).
I have prepped lots of 1,000 to 2,500 pieces at a time many, many times to feed my varmint rigs. I love that Lake City brass.
1) I tumble clean, lube and resize with a SMALL BASE die (the first time)
2) I cut the primer pockets. I used to use bench mounted reamer but now I favor cutters which uniformly open the crimp and level the bottom of the primer pocket in one operation.
3) I turn the necks to barely clean metal, setting the 5% or so that don't clean up aside. That will entail having to re-cut some of the brass a couple of times until you determine how little you can take off and still attain about 95% of the cases getting cleaned up. Because I shoot most of my brass in A/R's, I want to keep the necks as thick as I can.
4) I trim to length. (my trimmer also chamfers inside and outside at same time)
5) I segregate by weight into four lots, trying to get as many as I can withing a grain or so of each other in weight. You will often end up with some that go above or below that 4-grain +/- window. I save those as informal blasting brass but if there are only a few, I typically discard them.
6) I anneal each lot, keeping them separate. As I have an AMP annealer, I write the amp code for each lot of brass on the case they are kept in, after a few pieces are "analyzed" from each lot to arrive at a median number.
If I were wanting to make the brass as accurate as possible for a match rifle or ultra-precision varmint work, I'd add reaming the flash holes to the list, in no particular order. Carelessness can create more problems, but making the flash holes more uniform in size with a quality reamer is going to help - not hurt.
I have shot a lot of prepped brass over the chrono and found that I got pretty much the same results with a lot comprised of a single year - as that of a lot of years mixed together, provided they all had been prepped as I noted above. I used to sort by year, but I no longer do that. I've found that once you get brass that is within a grain of weight, has the same neck thickness, primer pocket depth and flash hold size, the date becomes fairly insignificant. One could say the base was thicker on one year, whereas the walls thicker on another year. The chrono says that, after prep, those differences matter little, if at all.
I spend about two full days doing all this to a lot of 1500 pieces. It is something for me to take my mind off of other things in life and I have the time to do it. If I were prepping new, unfired commercial brass, I'd still be lubing, sizing, trimming and turning the necks. Since tumbling takes no time away from other duties, the extra work is really the pocket cutting and annealing. And one could get by without the annealing for several firings if maintaining .223/.556 caliber.
A lot of folks no doubt just re-size with a small base die, ream or cut the primer pocket , trim to length and load.
1) I tumble clean, lube and resize with a SMALL BASE die (the first time)
2) I cut the primer pockets. I used to use bench mounted reamer but now I favor cutters which uniformly open the crimp and level the bottom of the primer pocket in one operation.
3) I turn the necks to barely clean metal, setting the 5% or so that don't clean up aside. That will entail having to re-cut some of the brass a couple of times until you determine how little you can take off and still attain about 95% of the cases getting cleaned up. Because I shoot most of my brass in A/R's, I want to keep the necks as thick as I can.
4) I trim to length. (my trimmer also chamfers inside and outside at same time)
5) I segregate by weight into four lots, trying to get as many as I can withing a grain or so of each other in weight. You will often end up with some that go above or below that 4-grain +/- window. I save those as informal blasting brass but if there are only a few, I typically discard them.
6) I anneal each lot, keeping them separate. As I have an AMP annealer, I write the amp code for each lot of brass on the case they are kept in, after a few pieces are "analyzed" from each lot to arrive at a median number.
If I were wanting to make the brass as accurate as possible for a match rifle or ultra-precision varmint work, I'd add reaming the flash holes to the list, in no particular order. Carelessness can create more problems, but making the flash holes more uniform in size with a quality reamer is going to help - not hurt.
I have shot a lot of prepped brass over the chrono and found that I got pretty much the same results with a lot comprised of a single year - as that of a lot of years mixed together, provided they all had been prepped as I noted above. I used to sort by year, but I no longer do that. I've found that once you get brass that is within a grain of weight, has the same neck thickness, primer pocket depth and flash hold size, the date becomes fairly insignificant. One could say the base was thicker on one year, whereas the walls thicker on another year. The chrono says that, after prep, those differences matter little, if at all.
I spend about two full days doing all this to a lot of 1500 pieces. It is something for me to take my mind off of other things in life and I have the time to do it. If I were prepping new, unfired commercial brass, I'd still be lubing, sizing, trimming and turning the necks. Since tumbling takes no time away from other duties, the extra work is really the pocket cutting and annealing. And one could get by without the annealing for several firings if maintaining .223/.556 caliber.
A lot of folks no doubt just re-size with a small base die, ream or cut the primer pocket , trim to length and load.
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