virgin lake city 5.56 brass

[rebs]

I bought some brand new never loaded virgin LC 5.56 brass from Graf's.
What is necessary to do to it before loading it ?

 

[Dub]

I would run it through a sizing die then load

 

[RegionRat]

Like Dub said, some of them come in bulk boxes of 1000 and get dinged up. For the most part, their shoulder and body are usually very good, but the roundness and neck tension are something you probably want to control for your own use.

A Lee Collet Die or mandrel really shines for tasks like rounding out the necks from bulk shipping damage.

I would also be doing an ID chamfer if this is for match use.

I am wondering how long ago you scored virgin LC 223 brass? It doesn't last long in a Service Rifle and since the plant operations contractor changed over I have not seen it offered. What year headstamp do you have and when did you get it?

 

[jelenko]

I am wondering how long ago you scored virgin LC 223 brass?

Right. It looks like Graf's isn't offering LC right now.

 

[jepp2]

I bought some brand new never loaded virgin LC 5.56 brass from Graf's.
What is necessary to do to it before loading it ?

I realize I am at odds with the majority. For new brass I do the following:

- I measure the case head to datum and compare that with my rifle headspace. Out of hundreds of different batches of new brass (covering tens of thousands of cases) I found exactly 1 batch that justified running it through a sizing die. You might ask is there is anything to lose by sizing it. Yes there is. You put an extra work cycle on the case neck by sizing it down then expanding it. The suggestion to either run a mandrel in the case mouth or use the LCD to make sure the case mouth is round is necessary. And on some new Lapua brass, I have found the case mouth diameter to be considerably undersize.

- I run a chamfer tool on the inside of the case neck. If you don't it will scratch the side of your bullets as you seat the and that can affect accuracy.

Not required, but I uniform all my primer pockets. Only have to do it once, and the primers will all seat to a uniform depth after doing this. You will not believe how inconsistent some are and how short of the proper depth they might be.

I may also weight sort the brass depending on the intended application.

 

[wkdickinson]

I bought a 1K new LC cases a few years ago to shoot in my AR. I did nothing to them before loading them. My reasoning was that, they would have just gone right to the loading line at LC as they were. They shoot just great! At the first reloading I do all of the step (trim, chamfer....) like do do for everything else.

 

[GotRDid]

Do your cases have the asphaltic sealant inside the case necks?

 

[Cemetery21]

No. It's new brass - never loaded, uncrimped primer pockets. Not pulldowns. Good stuff!
I still have a few thousand from prior years -2011, 2013, etc.
I used it for all of my 20P loads, 2600 rounds for 3 rifles.

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

Mandrel the necks to your preferred size, 0.222 for my bolt guns. Load and shoot. Primer pockets only if they measure short of my primer cups. Not shooting competition. I go 3-4 under for AR's.

 

[RegionRat]

Do your cases have the asphaltic sealant inside the case necks?

He is discussing virgin LC brass. It was being sold commercially to the public as late as a few years ago. Midway was selling boxes of 1000 bulk packed.

It comes sized, but in bulk boxes where the necks can get damaged, but is exactly as it would be fed into the loading lines as new virgin sized brass.

They are not sold with any neck sealant if that is what you are wondering.

That bullet sealant is a "wet" process done as the bullets are seated, it is not done to the brass before hand.

 

[Ned Ludd]

How you prep the virgin Lake City brass will largely depend on what the intended use and precision/accuracy requirements are. Lake City brass may have non-uniform case wall thickness. Over time, cases with uneven wall thickness will banana/curve toward the thicker side, which doesn't stretch quite as much as the thinner side during the firing process. This can clearly affect precision. If the utmost precision is required, sorting the cases with a case wall thickness gauge (i.e. Neco tool) is warranted. You may end up culling as many as half the cases if non-uniform case wall thickness is a concern. Those culled cases can obviously still be used for otherwise "less important" or "plinking" loads, so they will not be lost.

In my hands, the limiting factor with virgin brass is that neck tension straight out of the box is usually all over the map. There may even be a few cases with dinged-up necks. So my typical practice is to size down the necks of virgin cases with a FL sizing die containing a bushing that is about .001" smaller than I would use if the bushing were to be the only sizing step. Properly set, the sizing die will not bump the shoulders of virgin brass back at all. I then open the necks up slightly with a mandrel that is .0015" under bullet diameter, which gives very close to .002" neck tension (interference fit). Virgin brass prepped in this way typically shoots very, very well. Once the brass is all fire-formed, it is likely a re-visit to charge weight and seating depth testing will be in order, as the case volume will be different. However, minor alterations to charge weight so as to restore the original velocity in virgin brass, and checking to make sure the seating depth optimum hasn't changed dramatically are typically all that are necessary (as opposed to doing a full-blown load workup from scratch once the brass has all been fire-formed).

 

[atblis]

AMU has some write-ups about what they do to load virgin LC. Their stuff is typically based on extensive testing.

 

[Conaso]

AMU has some write-ups about what they do to load virgin LC. Their stuff is typically based on extensive testing.

Where is this article? All I found was for once-fired brass, not virgin brass.

 

[Kurz]

Here is the 3-part series by the AMU:

https://www.ssusa.org/articles/2016/6/3/match-winning-accuracy-from-combat-grade-brass-part-1/

.

 

[drop_point]

I would run through and expander mandrel and then chamfer/deburr.

 

[atblis]

Where is this article? All I found was for once-fired brass, not virgin brass.

Used to be on their Facebook. Appears to have been purged. Found where I’d posted quotes before

Several years ago, we sorted our virgin primed & inspected LC 5.56 brass into 0.3 grain increments. Given large Summer competition demands for LR ammo, we started with 50,000 to 60,000 cases of a given lot. We then winnowed them down into 0.3 gr. lots large enough for the team's Summer needs. (Why, yes, that WAS rather labor-intensive!)
We constantly conduct research to improve accuracy, and to improve efficiency without compromising accuracy or performance. We make no procedure changes without first fully verifying that performance is not degraded. After significant full-distance machine-rest and shoulder-fired testing, we determined that we could safely increase the weight range of LC match brass lots to 1.0 gr. This greatly cut sorting time, while increasing our brass lot sizes. When using some very high quality commercial brass, we weigh a sample of 100-200 cases and, if uniform enough, we can load that lot without weight sorting


Once the brass is ready to load, we set optimum neck tension when sizing. With virgin brass, we use a neck-sizing die with a correct-diameter neck bushing (available in 0.001" increments). We use light spray lube to prevent galling and adjust the die to size the full length of the case neck. Brass varies in hardness (e.g., LC = harder, some commercial brass may be softer.) Thus, for LC brass, we usually size case necks to be expanded 0.003" by the bullet upon seating. Example: if the case neck measures 0.248" after bullet seating, then a 0.245" die bushing is used.)

 

[Conaso]

Thank you, most grateful.

 

[JOE360]

I bought 500 virgin LC brass a while back. Only odd thing I noticed was maybe 20 out of 500 the shoulder was very short and had failure to fire due to primer being so far away from pin.

 

[RegionRat]

I bought 500 virgin LC brass a while back. Only odd thing I noticed was maybe 20 out of 500 the shoulder was very short and had failure to fire due to primer being so far away from pin.

Joe, just out of curiosity and sharing notes… what year is the head stamp and where did you find them? Was it a private party who broke out some they had stashed, or was the 500 pieces packaged by Lake City (Ferderal)?
I’m mostly wondering out loud if the new contract operator will get around to selling fresh virgin brass to the public before I run out…

 

[jelenko]

Just fyi. Starline is showing their 556 brass as 'backordered' - which in the past has meant they have it in stock and ship within a day.