Lake City .308

[Handsome Rob]

I just ordered 100 of the pre-primed Lake City cases from Midsouth.
I've never used pre-primed before, I've only ever reloaded my own, fired brass.

Is there anything I need to know? Should I assume it will already be sized & ready to go, our should I pull my de-priming pin & run it all through a sizing die?

[jaysouth]

you might need to resize the necks.  I bought several of these from A-H in Nashville (he still has them in stock as well as GI 5.56 primed).

 

I took the decapping pin out of my sizing die and ran some of  the cases to resize the necks  after pulldown.

 

Do what your micrometer and case gauge tell you.

[Handsome Rob]

That's what I figured. Thanks!

[Dolomite_supafly]

Depends. If they are new brass with primers then I would suggest removing the decapping pin and running them through because the necks can be loose on military brass that has been torn down from loaded ammunition.

 

And if it is new LC brass you probably will need to remove the crimp on the primer pockets as well when you get ready to reload them. I use a cheap 45 degree chamfer bit I bought from the hardware store to do this. Works great and is quick, easy as well as extremely cheap.

[Luke E.]

 Like dolomite mentioned, Most primed Lake City brass is not "new" as in never been loaded before. It's "new" as in never been fired before so since most have had a bullet pressed into them and then pulled back out, you will most likely need to neck size or, as you said, pull the decapping pin and run them through. If you don't you quite possibly could drop a bullet down into the case when you go to press it in. Ask me how I know that.......

[Handsome Rob]

Ummm....what's the usual cull rate on this stuff?
I just resized the full 100 & came away with 79 shootable cartridges.
17 with split necks out of the resizing die & 4 further splits on seating the bullet. I know it's cheap, surplus teardowns, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. It was also filthy enough that I've got it all loaded & in the tumbler.
As leery as I am of tumbling live rounds, I really wouldn't have wanted to load this into a new rifle.

[Luke E.]

Ummm....what's the usual cull rate on this stuff?
I just resized the full 100 & came away with 79 shootable cartridges.
17 with split necks out of the resizing die & 4 further splits on seating the bullet. I know it's cheap, surplus teardowns, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. It was also filthy enough that I've got it all loaded & in the tumbler.
As leery as I am of tumbling live rounds, I really wouldn't have wanted to load this into a new rifle.

I tumble every finished rifle round that falls off my press to get the case lube off. I've loaded and tumbled over 15,000 rounds of .223 in the last year or two with zero problems
As for the cull rate, it should be pretty much zero if it was never fired pull down cases. On top of that, Lake City brass is typically good stuff and I get many loadings on each piece. Sounds like a call to whomever you purchased it from is in order!