Lake City 308 Brass

4326 Views 16 Replies 10 Participants Last post by Caleb C, Apr 19, 2010

Caleb C

Discussion Starter · Apr 13, 2010

I recently purchased 100 rounds of supposedly once fired 308 brass at a gun show. The brass is all marked "LC 06". I sized it all in a Hornady sizing die and trimmed it all to length. Upon trimming the brass I notice that it all seemed a little long for once fired brass. Some of it was up to 25 mils too long. Anywho.........after the cases were all preped I loaded them with the same powder charge (46.5 gr H380) as my previous loads and capped them off with 150gr Hornady SSTs (the same load I've been shooting for months). When I got to the bench I noticed that NONE of the Lake City cases would chamber in my rifle. They seem to go into the chamber well enough but I can't lock the bolt. I've inspected all of the brass by measuring length and diameter but, I can't seem to find any differences between the Lake City and the Frontier brass that I've been using.

Do you have any idea what the problem my be? Have you heard of anyone else having problems with Lake City brass?

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Caleb C

Discussion Starter · #5 · Apr 13, 2010

That's correct. I used a full length size die. I even resized a few empty cases for a second time and tried them in my rifle (just to make sure I didn't do something stupid like forget to size them the first time). The empty cases showed the same problem as the loaded ammo.

Thanks for the info, Doug. I was completely unaware that machine gun fired brass could be so dimensionally different. Should the seller of the brass be able to account for what gun it was fired from? If so, are they likely to be honest about it?

I'm assuming that if the heads are stretched then that would render this brass useless. Is that a correct assumption?

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Caleb C

Discussion Starter · #7 · Apr 14, 2010

I can't help but wonder if the seller knew that the brass was garbage when he sold it to me. It very well could have been an honest mistake.

But still, when he started talking about killing a moose at 1000 yards with a 44 mag six-shooter or busting prairie dogs at 100 yards with a 9mm.....I should have put my money back in my pocket and walked away.

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Caleb C

Discussion Starter · #15 · Apr 19, 2010

SubGunFan said:
Commercial hunting/target rifles are going to have tighter chambers than military rifles. Have you considered buying a set of Small Base FL sizing dies?

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Small Base FL sizing dies? What's that?

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Caleb C

Discussion Starter · #17 · Apr 19, 2010

It sounds like a lot of hassle for no reward. I would probably be better off to trash my lot of Lake City brass and just stick with commercial stuff from here on out. This has taught me a valuable lesson about buying once fired brass from the crazy six-gun shootin' 1000 yard moose killin' guy at the gun show. My next lot of brass will be NEW.

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