Lake City Brass in 308 - Question?

[lshel]

I purchase 500 once fired LC 308/7.62x51  brass from Midway. The brass has two different headstamps: LC 11 and LC 09 LR. The dates indicate 2011 and 2009 production. The LC 11 is tighter in full length resizing die and I really have to lube brass good with Imperial resizing wax to keep it from sticking. Is this differences due to what type of weapon the brass was 1st fired in or is there different manufacturing practices between that stamped LR (long range) and the LC 11? Those that are familiar with Lake City brass educate me, thanks.

[173rdABN]

LR is M118LR brass. (Long Range). Who knows what the other LC11 stuff was shot in. Could have been a 48/240 or a SCAR or something else. Just never know with mil brass. 

 

The LR stuff is great though. Let me know if you dont want it :)

[lshel]

About 70% of that I bought from Midway is LR and the other 30% has been LC 11.

[leroy]

Ishel.... It's been my experience that with military brass (...both 223 and 308...) that if the brass has been shot out of full auto guns (...and lots of it has been...); the brass is stretched a bit as to length and it may be a tad swelled at the base; but it's nothin that cant be fixed by first resizing the brass completely and trimming it after re-size... We've done lots of 308 that way...

 

It's been my experience that military brass is good stuff; but you need to just go ahead and resize it (...we completely resized it and ran it thru a case gage...); then trim it to size and neck ream it as necessary; as sometimes the case mouth gets a bit thick... It will work just fine; but you cant take any shortcuts like not re-sizing it or not checking for trim to length... If i wuz shootin it in a semi-auto i would use a small base re-sizer to resize to minimum chamber size...

 

We always shot ours thru bolt guns; but the M1a guys always prepped their brass the same way...

 

Hope this helps...

leroy