Lake City Army Ammunition

Bratastic007

Bratastic007

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I need some advice: I recently purchased my first .308 rifle. A friend at work and I were talking about this, and he informed me that he no longer owns a .308 rifle, but that he still has a whole case of .308 ammunition that he bought at a gun show 15 years ago.

The ammunition is match-grade 7.62 NATO, 173 grain. It is labeled as manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. No indication of date of manufacture, but my work friend said he thought they may have been made back in the 70s. It is in perfect condition.

My buddy gave me two 20 round boxes to go out and test, with the understanding that if the ammo cycled in my rifle (a Springfield M1A), I would buy the rest off of him.

Here are my questions: Is there any risk to shooting ammo that's potentially 40 years old? Has anyone heard of this manufacturer or the quality of their ammo? And finally, if it does function well, what is a fair price for the case (in terms of price per round)? I'm looking for a good deal, but I don't want to rip him off by any means.
 
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Bratastic007 said:
I need some advice: I recently purchased my first .308 rifle. A friend at work and I were talking about this, and he informed me that he no longer owns a .308 rifle, but that he still has a whole case of .308 ammunition that he bought at a gun show 15 years ago.

The ammunition is match-grade 7.62 NATO, 173 grain. It is labeled as manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. No indication of date of manufacture, but my work friend said he thought they may have been made back in the 70s. It is in perfect condition.

My buddy gave me two 20 round boxes to go out and test, with the understanding that if the ammo cycled in my rifle (a Springfield M1A), I would buy the rest off of him.

Here are my questions: Is there any risk to shooting ammo that's potentially 40 years old? Has anyone heard of this manufacturer or the quality of their ammo? And finally, if it does function well, what is a fair price for the case (in terms of price per round)? I'm looking for a good deal, but I don't want to rip him off by any means.
Click to expand...

Great ammo. Keep the brass cases ( They are some of the more sought after cases to reload, If you don't reload I'd bet you can sell the (Spent) brass cases). Shouldn't be any issue that it is old, assuming proper storage. As far as price, maybe someone else will chime in, and / or you could check cabelas prices, and make him an offer based on current pricing.
 
Is it safe to shoot? Yes, unless the boxes show they have been stored in adverse conditions. As far as price go to

CMP Sales

and see what current CMP prices for 7.62 Nato are. But keep in mind that LC match can bring a premium for Service Rifle Match shooters.

I just checked and they are not selling 7.62 but are selling 30-06 for .48 a round which is probably more than your friend paid when he bought it. Most of the Surplus ammo was originally sold through the CMP.
 
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Your ammo is Lake City M118 and was essentially made for the M14/M1A. It is very good ammo and will serve you well. Many military marksmanship units would pull the 173 bullets and re-seat 168 Sierra Match Kings. they only time I thought that this was an advantage was on the 600 yards line and back.
Shoot it and enjoy, there will be NO problems in any form with it in an M1A/M14. When you reload it if that is what you will do, the primer pocket must be swaged depending on what year the M118 is. Usually the M118 in a White box with red lettering was headstamped "Match" and will not need to be processed, the mid 1980's marked Special Ball will.
Pricing is what ever the market will bear.
Hope this helps out.
Randy
 
Thanks everyone for the input. It sounds as though this is well-known ammunition.

For what it's worth, the boxes are white, with red and blue lettering, and one side of the box has a big red word "MATCH" with a US Eagle and shield over it.

The casings are stamped "LC 72 MATCH."
 
Finest kind of ammo. Known for quality and accuracy. Go for it. I have never owned a .308, but I have shot Lake City 30-06 Match and it was good stuff.
 
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is now run by ATK (Federal) for the government. In 1972, I believe it was operated by Winchester-Olin. I got some 70's Lake City .30-06 from CMP a few years ago, and it is superb Garand fodder. You will be happy with the 7.62 NATO (assuming proper storage).

Buck
 
shoot it, I have shot circa 40s ball from a garand with out a hiccup...
 
I read a claim somewhere that the match stuff still used corrosive primers, supposedly it was more consistent. Any truth to this? I have some match 30-'06, I think from '67.
 
Corrosive primers in US military ammo ended after WWII. Headstamps from the 50s forward are noncorrosive this includes Match ammo.
 
tbury said:
I just checked and they are not selling 7.62 but are selling 30-06 for .48 a round which is probably more than your friend paid when he bought it. Most of the Surplus ammo was originally sold through the CMP.
Click to expand...


The 30/06 they are selling is NOT Lake City. It is HXP (Greek made). Some rumors that HXP M-2 is hard on the op rod in the M-1. Haven't used it as I have a good amount of LC Match and ball.
 
The oldest ammo I have fired was Turk 8mm from the early 1930's.......most of it goes off without a problem but I would never trust it for anything "serious",I don't know how it's been stored while in Turkey, and later at a US distributor....... it's good only for paper punching since a hangfire or dud is not uncommon. Good thing I have over 50,000 rounds of it:)

Lake City is good stuff, I fired and also wasted a ton of this stuff at training ranges when I was in the Army.......I was the company "ammo handler" and the ammo I was ordered to "get rid of", would bring a tear to your eye........no ammo was to be turned back in, because next time we would get less.....so I was handed belts upon belts of 7.62 by an E6 or E7 and told to "make this go away", a lot of it ended up getting thrown into the swamp....if I only I had some way to keep it, but there was no way. Don't worry, Lake City is only "rare" for civilians, I have seen countless sealed cases of LC 7.62 and 5.56 stacked high and deep in the ammo vault at Ft. Drum, must have been millions of rounds in there. I could shoot every minute of every day of the rest of my life and not be able to shoot up what was used in one year at ranges.
 
Lake City "72" Match. if it was stored properly is still good ammo.

It will usually remain Supersonic to 1000 yards even in a 22" M1-A.

Usually 168gr Federal Match is more accurate to 600 or even 800 yards, but at 900 to 1000 yards LC 308 Match is "mo betta".

Test it and if it shoots good, save it for long range.
 
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Lake City M118 Match 72 was some of the finest match ammo Lake City made. I have fired thousands of them and they always delivered excellent accuracy in my M1A even back to 600 yards. Never did the old Mexican Match thing where you pulled the 173's and re-seated 168 Sierra MatchKings....many did and did VERY well with it.
Grab as much of it as you can get and watch the ten and X ring get pummeled!
Randy
PS...save your brass and reload some very nice brass as well without having to swage the primer pocket.
 
Your M-118 was originally packed as 20/20rd. boxes in a "50 cal. can", two 400 rd. cans to a wooden case. All the lot numbers stamped on the box should be the same.

Unopened boxes in good shape start at $20/box, depending on how much ammo the seller may have and how bad you want it. You won't know how well it shoots 'til you test it. It's not Federal Match, but if you can buy it right it will save you the loading time.

Good shooting.
 
Put two 50 cal ammo cans of lake city match through my model 70 match rifle. Had a bunch of guys asking if I was going to save the brass. Still have about a half 50 caliber ammo can left and a bunch of once fired cases. Great stuff, definitely try some if you get the chance as you won't be dissapointed. Frank
 
Bratastic, you do not mention what state you live in, but if for any reason you do not want to buy this ammo from your friend, please send me a PM and let me know. If I can either pick or it can be shipped at a reasonable cost, I will buy it.

Thanks! :-)
 
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