Online I found some Lake City XM855 62Gr Green tip, you know, they stuff everyone wants In a new ammo can, 420 rounds (14 10-round stripper clips) packed 3 stripper clips to a small box.

I eagerly open it, and holly smokes does this stuff look terrible!

The cases are heavily annealed, the green tip paint has been rubbed off of many rounds, the cases are badly water stained, and worst of all, about 80% of them have strange machine/stamp marks around the primer.

There are four distinct impressions like this " - " in a perfect square, but open ended at the corners.

Anyone see this before? Is this fake XM855 Lake City ammo? Would you send it back?

Sounds like normal staked in primers. Probably del-linked MG stuff. Post a pic.

Yup. Some of my LC pickups have had the funky staked primers.

My range pickups of all calibers have been pretty low quality since Sandy Hook. My theory is that people are buying more reloads since factory ammo has been scarce and the commercial reloaders are getting to the bottom of their brass bins.

The XM855 of the last few years has had serious QC problems, often far over pressure. Some has been tested and showed pressure above that of proof loads. In a true 5.56X45 chamber, you might get by, but without being darned sure that the chamber is in fact correctly dimensioned (and there are makers who mark them that way, but they not correct), you could be taking a heck of a risk.

Before the ramp up for wartime production, a lot of the rejects were for cosmetic problems; now, there are more rejects, and they tend to have more serious problems.

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NHI, 10-8.

Yikes, I was going to feed a 6920 with it, but I'm going to try and send it back. No warm and fuzzy feeling from this stuff.

It is old, the brass very tarnished and water stained and the green tip paint is dried up and flaking off.

Interesting about the staked primers, thanks for that useful info.

You can do some research on the various issue you have spotted, and how they may correlate to problems, but I think caution is the right path. At least you have a 6920, so you can be sure it was built to the TPD.

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NHI, 10-8.

Pics? Are you sure you are not looking at the neck annealing and lack of case polish on military ammo? No offense, but if you are new to the 5.56 world, you may be looking at perfectly fine ammo. It DOES NOT look like polished commercial ammo.

Take it out and shoot it. Does it shoot like junk or does it shoot like the real McCoy? That is the real test.

Remember any of this stuff for sale to the public is military reject to begin with. Typically if failed any one of the many tests they have that thankfully far exceed what most commercial ammo requires.