5.56 Lake City brass from Midway

Hobie1

Hobie1

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I bought 500 from Midway and was very impressed with the whole batch. OAL cartridge length very consistent as well as the rest of the parameters. I processed the brass, sizing, primer pocket work, and went through the loading of a bullet to depth(inert no powder/primer). Much to my delight, there is no discernable run-out at all, using Dillon die set.

I've got 500 more on the way.

Anyone else worked with this brass?

Hobie
 
Dragon88 said:
Hard to find better 5.56 brass than LC.
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+1
When I saw the brass for sale, I had to have some. I have some LC match for my CMP purchased M-1 Garand. What a great deal that was way back when.

The LC brass I received is so consistent that trimming won't be necessary. I have pulled brass out from the bottom to the top of the batch and they all,hard as this may be to believe, 1.755 in cartridge length. Oh, okay, maybe 1.756...1.754 once in awhile.

Primer pocket truing, chamfer inner and outer neck, full length sizing. Zero run-out neck and bullet.

Life is good!!
 
Sounds like the virgin brass is a lot easier to work with. I have a lot of brass from fired overrun green tip and XM193. Fired cases are usually very long, and of course the primer pockets are crimped. Once processed though the cases are excellent to load, and you can't beat the price: free.
 
I love LC brass, I get mine from Polygunbag.com

It looks they are selling 500 for $68, I hope Midway didn't sting you too bad.
 
Midway is selling the 500 piece unfired Lake City for $115 right now. I think they were on sale recently though, I remember seeing it on the front page.
 
About 1/2

Well, I could of saved quite a bit of money if i'd known this 3 hours ago. Nobody's fault but my own impulse buying.:o

Is this other brass, that's much cheaper, virgin brass?(edit, it does say new unprimed) Because if it is, I'm going to buy a bunch more for a lot less. I really like what I've seen but I'm going to have to wait quite awhile before I get my new Sport. One thing that takes a bit of sting out of it is that I got my gun for a very good price.

That all being said I think a couple more thousand would work just fine.

Regards,

Hobie
 
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Yes, the 5.56 Lake City brass I got from Polygun bag is new unfired with a 2011 headstamp.

It came in clear bags, 100 to each bag. The best part is, there is no primer crimp to deal with.
 
Buy what makes you happy, but unless you are loosing a ton of cases in the grass, what you have is going to last a long time. These cases are annealed very well and rarely split. In fact I would love to see the annealing process at Lake City. It must be highly automated and efficient, because the quality of brass turned out is exceptional considering rounds are cranked out by the millions, and meant to be fired once and thrown away.
 
Too much is never enough

I just picked up the deal from Natchez so that puts me at around 2000 cases to start with. I know, overkill, but several years ago I bought all kinds of dif. caliber brass for next to nothing(now). As you might guess, it's worth a lot more now.
So....
Hobie
 
Highly impressed

Well, I've started the process of preparing the new brass for loading and I'm very happy with the consistent quality of the brass from length to runout to weight.
I hadn't reloaded rifle brass in many years but have all the neat little tools to turn out as best as Hobie's able to loads. I loaded a couple of rounds to check tolenances and so far very pleased with the results at least as physical parameters are concerned. Next to nothing bullet runout and everything looks to be good to go.
Let's see...at about 3 minutes a round to size, trim, chamfer inside and out, square primer pocket and ream flash hole(Hey why not, I'm there already:)) and wipe off the lube, at 2000 rounds, that will take me only 100 hours. At minimum wage that's about $900. Hmm, .45 cents a round. But hey, only have to do it once for the most part and it keeps me out of houses of il-repute so I can cut down on my medical expenses.;):D

Okay....I'm done.:p

Hobie
 
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Okay, the actual time for me to produce RTL cartridges is more like less than a minute per case.........it just seems like a bit longer.:)

It is great to get back into the discipline again!

Hobie
 
Getting a kick out of the PRICES for GI brass. Many years back a buddy bought a mess of surplus brass from Hill AFB near SLC. IIRC he paid $40 per 55 gal drum, filled to the top. It was the early 1980's.

Wonder how many rds in a 55 gal drum?

FN in MT
 
Frank237 said:
Wonder how many rds in a 55 gal drum?
Click to expand...

My fingers and wrists cringe to guess. That's a whole lot of brass to process and load...

Yeah I wouldn't pay for LC brass. It's great stuff, but available for free or nearly free if you have a source.
 
I bought several thousand 10 years ago when it was dirt cheap, one of the best investments I ever made, still have plenty left. I feed 4 AR's in 5.56 and 1 in 9mm so buying in bulk pays off.
Hard to imagine the millions of pieces of brass that the military has gone thru over the years, good to see some of it is being recycled and us shooters are benefiting from it.
RD
 
Have over 4000 pieces from Natchez. Today's deals are tommorrows"yell well the price used to be". Only measured a couple of the new LC, but they appeared very consistent in lenght and didn't appear to need much processing. Will probably just clean and neck size em , without expanding plug.

Have heavily invested in futures trading , during times when it is available. Especially brass, lead and copper, and never regretted it.

How many shortages have we been through in last 20 years?
 
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