Any leads on reasonable priced once fired 223 brass? I currently shoot lake city, but would also be interested in Win headstamp. Thanks in advance.

with some changes in loading technics, I have been finding that I can stretch out the life span of brass dramatically.. at least for a bolt action...

old ways gave me a life span on 223 and 22.250 brass to about 8 to 10 reloads reliably...

now I am finding out how to stretch that to where they are still going strong at 20 reloads now...

That being said and the price and availability of brass not coming down at the moment, I'd recommend just picking up a couple of bags of new factory brass... and then start doing some of the load techniques I have started using...

get yourself a Redding Body Die for 223.. which is about $22.00 or so...

then get ahold of a Lee Neck Collect Die...

a third nice die for about $17.00 is a Hornady Neck Sizer Die... they make them for 22 caliber in a long or short version... learn what they are good for also....

right now I have stretched out brass life on both 22.250 and 223 to 20 reloads now on several test batches of 10, without any casualties...

the experiment is including 10 batches of 10 pieces of brass each... for a total of 100 rounds, in both 223, and 22.250...

so far I have shot about 1500 little 22 caliber 55 grain bullets down range doing this experiment... I will be interested to see what the life span can be stretched out to...

I have even contemplated picking up a batch of 100 cases from Lapua since they are supposed to be the durability champ on the market and on their site, they claim to have reloaded some cases up to 300 times!!!1

Don't plan on getting anywhere near that, but it is an interesting goal to work toward...

a little prudence on the powder scale also will help out quite a bit...and also dramatically increase barrel life...

I have to admit, my biggest motivation over this has been on the scare of component availability.. between the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.. and the fear over Obummer screwing with gun owners to the max...

In doing this experiment also, I am finding more consistency in Rem and Win Brass over LC and that I think they are going to last longer..a fact which is surprising me....

LC is good, but Rem and Win are better... now to just get a batch of Lapua...

Try Blue Star Cartridge & Brass. They show 223Rem. once-fired for $58.99 per 500. They show 99% Remington.
GOOD LUCK and GOOD SHOOTING!!

http://store.brassmanbrass.com...BLOW-OUT-SALE/Detail
$90/1,000 for Federal. Don't know how current this is....r in s.

"Reasonable prices?" I can remember when .308 and '06 were free so nothing is "reasonable..." And I am sure you have noticed that there is a shooting match going on... In use prices stay up, then there is the "commodity" bubble that is bursting but old stock has to be sold off...

If you can find hard copy of shotgun news or go online to shotgunnews.com you can look at the big players, some anyway, who deal surplus. GIbrass.com, patsreloading.com, hi-techammo.com, cheyennebrass.com, etc. [Under reloading components, of course.] Otherwise I would just google .223. Wideners has had once fired and IMI and some south of the border brass (remington has a plant in Mexico)... It is there. Only question is how hard you want to look. Powder Valley has been "low" to "no" anytime I have looked recently... LUCK Happy trails.

Any opinions on the Federal brass? I havent seen it sold around here. How does it compare in quality to win or rem?

Federal brass has heavier side walls...

I have a load for the 223, that in Rem, Win and LC brass, I use 28 grains of powder before hitting max... in Fed brass max is at 26 grains... and yields the same velocity as 28 grains in the other major brands of brass....

quote:

Originally posted by seafire2:
In doing this experiment also, I am finding more consistency in Rem and Win Brass over LC and that I think they are going to last longer..a fact which is surprising me....

LC is good, but Rem and Win are better... now to just get a batch of Lapua...

LC brass, while military, is really only gonna be used once in it's normal usage. Rem and Win must figger the person who buys "brass" is gonna reload it more than once.

2nd to the brassman brass in Nevada. Great guy to do business with.

Federal .223 brass stinks, at least in my opinion. Primer pockets open up real fast.

Tom

wideners .com has once fired in stock for .223 and .308 lake city.

i bought a bunch of lc from scharsch, which i think is now gibrass.com. any more, all these people who just bought their new ar-15 rifles are going to the range and leaving brass. i like lc, followed by winchester. give benchmark powder a try.

Federal commercial brass has a thinner web (partition between powder chamber and primer pocket) than the others since there seems to be no SAAMI standard for that dimension. Pretty soft brass to begin with too so you'll only get a few handloads out of it no matter what.

That said, ATK (Federal) runs the Lake City plant currently and that brass has to meet US and NATO specs. It's OK.

Mark