LC 5.56 Processed Brass

[pmsmith2032]

Any suggestions on where to buy 5.56 Lake City processed brass? I use to buy from Kaleo Arms but they no longer sell processed. Looking for 250 or 500 cases. Thanks!

[Charlie98]

Probably Scharch (Top Brass.)

[hounddawg]

lots of choices - I used https://www.rockeybrass.com/Brass_c_14.html the other day and they have decent prices and super fast shipping

[Nathan]

To me, that Rocky Brass price looks pretty good. I think I paid about that for 1000 LC brass as fired.

[Marco Califo]

Gibrass.com Jeff Bartlett sells LC brass. I do not know if he still processes primer pockets.
Top Brass is Mixed headstamps. 50% LC in 7.62.
You probably won't need to trim LC 556.

[Marco Califo]

Midsouth Shooters Supply has brand .new unprimed LC 556 brass, never crimped. $50 for 250
https://www.midsouthshooterssupply.c...rass-250-count
It was $40, but that sale ended. It is in stock.
I did buy 250 7.62 primed pull-down they had. It seems they cleaned the bullet sealant off.
Both these sale items come and go, so I check their site often. If you signup for the email, you will get more than one per day forever.

[hounddawg]

I just bought 500 from these guys https://www.rockeybrass.com/223556-F...rass_p_15.html for $69.70 shipped. Supposed to be on the truck for delivery, will do a quick inspection this evening and make a post as to the quality

[hounddawg]

Stuff I bought was not 100% LC. rather a mixture of LC, PMC, Win, RP, Frontier etc. It looked like it has been tumble polished, all swadges removed on the LC. Looks to be full length resized and trimmed. The COL was a consistent 1.750 plus or minus .002 and necks were chamfered and deburred. base to shoulder comparisons showed consistent sizing compared to a go gage. I will do a paper clip test and a exterior inspection but once that is done I send it through a collet neck sizer, drop in some flake/ball powder and load those 55 gn factory seconds in them for some smoke and noise fun ammo. I did not do a count but going by weight they added a few cases. I saw a few nickle plated mixed in as I was dividing them into five groups for loading

[Charlie98]

I did buy 250 7.62 primed pull-down they had. It seems they cleaned the bullet sealant off.
Both these sale items come and go, so I check their site often. If you signup for the email, you will get more than one per day forever.

I bought 500 of those LC cases... after thinking about it, I should have just bought some loaded Prvi and been better off. Oh, well. They were decent cases, certainly...

[Marco Califo]

I will take LC over PP every time. Military brass is QC to begin with and can take autoloader handling.

[Charlie98]

I will take LC over PP every time. Military brass is QC to begin with and can take autoloader handling.

Not in my experience. Of all the brass I've had for the 7.62mm, I've had more problems with LC (and Winchester, oddly enough) military brass than anything else I've worked with. I can't speak specifically of 5.56mm, because I don't handload any large quantities of it, currently.

[Unclenick]

Charlie 98,

That's interesting to hear. What was the nature of the trouble?

[Charlie98]

I bought 2 1K lots of processed 7.62mm brass from Scharch. With them, I had case head blowouts... fractures through the case head, not case head separation (LC04.) I had to cull out every bit of LC04 and scrap it.





Recently, I've had issues with Winchester brass from the same lots...





This brass all failed on my first loading.

[Metal god]

@ Charlie

Wow , I almost exclusively use 7.62 LC brass and that's a lot of it . I currently am using LC-09 , 10 , 12 , 14 , 16 - totaling several thousand and never had an issue like that . Thanks for your post though , I now know to stay away from LC-04 . FWIW I'd recommend staying away from LC-14 as well . It works but appears to be a tad soft . Primer pockets are getting loose with only a few mild loads fired and several were loose when I got them and they were once fired with the primers still crimped in .

[Wendyj]

Rocky Mountain Reloading RMR is having a sale on LC brass right now. One fired but cleaned and prepped. Good prices when on sale.

[Unclenick]

Charlie98,

I can guess those cases were originally fired in a machine gun that stretched them well beyond normal. They can be overworked putting that extra stretching back to normal size. I would have called Top Brass about it and let them know (if you didn't already).

[Chaparral]

I always use to purchase all my LC brass (5.56 & 7.62) from a company called Weatherford Brass out of Weatherford, Oklahoma. I have no idea what happen to these people. But I did recently buy a large supply of LC 5.56 brass from a company out of Colorado called Top Brass. Wish I had bought more at that time.

[Unclenick]

That's the same company Charlie98's talking about. Used to be Scharch Manufacturing when they started, though I don't see mention of that name now. They made a lot of their own headstamp new brass originally, then that seemed to disappear. I've still got .45 Auto, 44 Mag, and 357 Mag with their headstamp somewhere.

[Metal god]

I can guess those cases were originally fired in a machine gun that stretched them well beyond normal.

UN that's a good point and I agree is likely the issue . I get mine from my local range where the military ( Navy , Coast guard ) practice . There's not a lot of the big 7.62 machineguns being fired at that range . Might be why most of the brass I get is in pretty good condition .

[hounddawg]

I have always had good luck with 5.56 LC, most of what I get is range pickup and full auto's are scarce as hens teeth there. If I had known about the place WendyJ linked I would have probably bought there but I bookmarked it for next time, a thanks to Wendy for posting the link

[Charlie98]

Charlie98,

I can guess those cases were originally fired in a machine gun that stretched them well beyond normal. They can be overworked putting that extra stretching back to normal size. I would have called Top Brass about it and let them know (if you didn't already).

Yes, Scharch is now Top Brass. I didn't realize they made the full name change.

I've made several posts about my experience with 'once-fired, processed' military brass over on the M14 forum. I bought that brass when I got my M1a, around 2008 or so... but I didn't start using it right away. The LC04 issues didn't show up until I started to use it... maybe 3 or 4 years later. It was very, VERY unusual... the LC04 in particular, and that it was isolated to a single headstamp; my thoughts are that it was either a bad lot of brass or brass stock, or that it was stored improperly after firing. The case head fractures are not a result of being fired in a machine gun. The Winchester case splits are another weirdo failure I don't understand... the cuts are lengthwise, not a stretch ring typical of MG fired brass. Just very odd.

I do speak from a bit of experience, however... when I was in the Army, at Fort Carson, I worked in RXA (Recoverable eXchange Activity) where we received everything from tires and brass, to M-60 engines. The brass was just dumped in 55gal drums and strapped to a pallet for dropoff... it was stored outside, in barrels that very well may have been contaminated. Once I took it over to the civilians (who were tasked with making the final disposition on any items... that is to say, repair or scrap, etc...) it, again, just sat outside in the back lot, until it was finally taken over to the lot where they ran auctions... and, again, sat outside until it was taken away by the auction winner. So, no one really knows how 'once-fired' military brass has been treated or stored... being fired in a MG is, really, the least of the issues.

After the episode with the LC04 brass... blowing the magazine floorplate out of my M1a about 4 times before I got the hint... I have sworn off anyone else's rifle brass. I now source all of my own brass either as new components, or as loaded ammunition... and call it a day.