How is Lake City Brass compared to standard commercial brass, i.e. Remington, Winchester, etc? Is there any advantage or disadvantage?

JAB, usually military brass is more uniform than run of the mill commercial brass. It is almost always thicker so case capacity is less. Start your loads at least 5-8% under start load and work your way up. I seperate mine by arsenal and year. Paul.

JAB-

If you're looking at LC that was fired through a machine gun, save yourself the aggravation. MG's are very hard on brass, and the once-fired stuff really isn't the deal that it appears to be. It will be stretched, have battered necks/case mouths, etc.

On the other hand, if you have found some LC Match (either headstamped in earlier years, or a cannelure above the web on more recent stuff), that is some fine stuff. It's what I use in my match rifle. (I fired a 570 out of 600 possible in a 600 yard match yesterday with it...)

Lake City 64 is the best 308 brass ever made.

JAB,
Are you looking at some or do you have it already. The reason I ask, is I recently came into a bunch, sorted, polished, trimmed and ready to load. I have a few hundred extra that I may part with. LMK.

JAG

Lake City Brass is heavier and harder than most commercial brass since it is designed to be fired out of semi auto or full auto military arms which aren't known for cycling gently. The LC 7.62 Match cases are made no different than LC Ball other than the lack of a crimped in primer (one less step to reload) and the headstamp.

If you're shooting a semi-auto, you'll find LC stands up to the abuse for more reloadings. However, if it is M852 brass (originally loaded with the 168 Sierra and generally 80's and 90's vintage), the cannelure near the head has been said to shorten the reloading life.

From a consistency and accuracy standpoint, I and most other competitive shooters find that LC is far from the best. I've found LC to vary widely in weight consistency, Case wall thickness, Neck thickness and Base Square. When processed carefully and loaded, the rounds typically show significant runout - for competition, I do more sorting and discard more. What brass is best? In 308, Lapua is preferred by the Palma Teams of most countries including the US. Some will use Winchester. But none are using LC if that tells you anything. Lightnin, sorry but some lots of LC64 have been cited as some of the worst in terms of accuracy out there (one article that comes to mind was written by Creighton Audette in the 80's).

Some of the things to be aware of have already been mentioned by the other folk;
1) For 7.62, Reduce your load for work-up at least 1 grain below what you'd use with commercial brass - LC is heavier and has less case capacity. LC 5.56 (223) brass is comparable to Winchester and Rem in capacity and weight though.

2) Avoid any brass that was potentially fired in a Machine Gun. The large, sloppy MG chamber has the brass coming out oversized and nearly impossible to resize down to SAAMI spec.

3) For good sources of LC, check out RVO (www.rvow.com), Jeff Bartlett (www.gibrass.com), or Scharch (www.scharch.com). All three sells 5.56 and 7.62 brass that has been sized, polished and ready to reload. Scharch and RVO will prime them if you'd like. Bartlett carries GI Pulldown (never fired) including LC68 Match at 120/thousand. As you'll see on these sites, LC is cheap and available - that is one of the primary advantages.