Lake City Brass as to Lake City Match Brass ?

W

Willyp

New member
I use to buy once fired brass to load and for my boys to plink with. The price difference between the 2,Regular lake city and lake city match brass was quite a bit more ! I figured that one was better than the other,due the match stamp on it ?
I was at my home range,maybe 20 years ago and 3 fellows were there,from the Marine reserves near my place.They were using 308s and just leaving the brass lay. I looked at it and it was stamped LC Match.I was told i could have all they left there. I ask one of them if it was different than the regular brass and was told all that was different was the Match stamp on it. It was stamped so as to not use it for battle ammo is all that was different !
Is this true ?
 
match

When I worked there the national match was loaded with 175 gr. hpbt sierra matchkings had a cannalure around the case. Primer wasn't steaked,no waterproofing.It was run on the best running machines all the way through the case area kept separate from the regular ball. The govt. specs were the same it was just ran on the best running machines you had so it shouldn't have as much variation. That was 25 years ago I don't know what they do now.
 
175 ?? You sure ?? No 175 match that i know of.
168 in the 308 match.
175 in the m118 lr..but not match.

Doug Casner said:
When I worked there the national match was loaded with 175 gr. hpbt sierra matchkings had a cannalure around the case. Primer wasn't steaked,no waterproofing.It was run on the best running machines all the way through the case area kept separate from the regular ball. The govt. specs were the same it was just ran on the best running machines you had so it shouldn't have as much variation. That was 25 years ago I don't know what they do now.
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Nm

I think when I worked out there we ran match, national match,special ball, nato, infiltration,and blank. The special ball was 118 I think. Im pretty sure the national match was loaded with 175s. I saw regular match with 168s. I think, that's been a long time ago back in the 80s. It was pretty much the same case , except blank, when it left the case area except the headstamp. They must have changed from 118 to long range after I was out there. The 118 was a sniper round I always thought but it was loaded with hollow point bullets not fair according to the Geneva convention. I don't know. I just tried to run good cases.
 
M852 is a sie 168 in a special marked case. no crimp, but a band of knurl around the base and not for combat...till we got that terminology straightrned out.
M118 was just a mil "match" 173 till it changed to m118 lr with a sie 175.
 
Lake City

Mr. Maier, Did you used to work at lake City? Maybe I know you. I worked in 2 most of the time where they made 7.62. Doug
 
Sorry , no, but i do know a bit about 7.62x51 mil rounds.
They still let us shoot them in sunny so cal.

What is the mil designation for the 175 sie target round ?
The no crimp/knurled match case was only m852..the sie 168 .

Doug Casner said:
Mr. Maier, Did you used to work at lake City? Maybe I know you. I worked in 2 most of the time where they made 7.62. Doug
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I go back to the 60's and LakeCity match was in a white tear open box with the eagle on it, no crimp period on the bullet or primer and was used for leg or service matches we pulled the bullets and loaded them with 168 at that time for NRA. matches. They were annealed so good you could neck the down to 243 and back to 308 and up to 358 with out a crack. The LakeCity you see today doesn't even come close to the old…….. jim
 
lake city

Mr. Maier, I learned a long time ago don't ever say they never did this or that at lake city. Ive seen national match loaded with 175 sierras no primer crimp no waterproffing in a white box 20 rounds to a box it was called carton pack in packing. I knew a marine that was in Vietnam said he loved that white box lake city match. A old lady ran body anneal and a good looking blonde ran mouth anneal that's about all I know about anneals I used to come in an hour early and light the anneals up. Let em warm up but I don't know much about them. I don't know what mils or sies are but we used to run a million a day on 2 shifts when we were busy. It was a good place to work back then. Doug
 
m118

original m118
Finally in 1964 the new National Match M14 was introduced along with the new ‘M118 Match Cartridge’.

The new M118 ammo used the same 173gr FMJBT (Full Metal Jacket Boat Tail) bullet that the .30-06 M72 Match ammo used. This bullet was manufactured by Lake City and was based on the 1956 International Match bullet. The bullet itself had a lead alloy core (90% lead, 10% antimony) with a gilding metal jacket comprised of 90% copper and 10% zinc. The boattail was a 9 degree taper and was .225″ long. The original specification weight was 173gr but as time progressed and the tooling wore out, that weight began to spread from 172 – 175gr. The claimed ballistic coefficient of the bullet is .494 which was very high for that time period.

The case on the M118 ammo was a match grade military case produced by Lake City and it originally utilized the percussion primer No. 43. The initial M118 loads used either 44 grains of WC 846 powder or 42 grains of IMR 4895. By 1970 Lake City had changed to exclusively use the IMR 4895 as it was easier to clean the residue from bores. The overall length of the cartridge was 2.83″ and the average velocity was 2550 fps, about 100 fps slower than the M72 .30-06 match load. The early M118 ammo was noted to be accurate with very few complaints and the ammo made a good compliment to both the M40 and M21 sniper rifles and proved quite effective in combat during the Vietnam conflict.
 
m852 post viet nam/ early 80's

Because of these results a new load was developed called the M852. The design was simple, put the 168gr Sierra Match King bullet on the same M118 brass and powder. The M852 was adopted in the early 1980’s and was for match use only. Because the Sierra Match King (SMK) bullet had a hollowtip as a byproduct of production, it was not regarded at the time as being acceptable for combat use in terms of abiding by the Laws of Land Warfare.
 
m118 lr 1990's

As is often the case for the development of snipers and sniping equipment for the US Military, the USMC lead the way and in 1993 they laid out their new design specifications for an improved 7.62x51mm NATO sniping cartridge dubbed the M118 Special Ball Long Range (LR). The USMC worked with Lake City on the design of the cartridge which included a new projectile design that they then sent over to Sierra. Sierra quickly was able to get some prototypes to the USMC of this new bullet, now known as the 175gr Match King, which incorporated a 9 degree boat tail like the M118/M72 bullet design. The design of the new load also designated an increase in velocity by 30 fps, up to 2580 fps
 
if you want i can break down the steps that devol'ed the original
m118 lr to reduced common service m118lr to the current soft ball 175 load with imr 4064.
 
My question was if the brass was a different quality between the 2 stamping. The difference in the loads didn't matter because i was talking once fired brass .
I was told it was the same brass just stamped as to its use .
 
Lake city info.....

Per....Accurate Shooter .com.......

"In addition to commercial brass, many .308 Win shooters reload boxer-primed military cases such as Lake City, IMI, and Hirtenberger. The Lake City Match brass is pretty good. Some lots have been excellent. The standard Lake City fodder is inferior to Winchester. IMI brass has a reputation for being strong, but we advise you only to purchase it new. Some used lots of IMI brass from Israel have been defective. If you are looking for ultimate accuracy, IMI will probably disappoint you, though it’s good for gas guns that are tough on cases.
The most important thing to remember about military brass is that the internal capacity will probably be less than commercial .308 Win brass, because military brass often has thicker webs or casewalls. Montana Marine reports his fire-formed milsurp cases hold 56 grains of H20 on average compared to 58 grains for fire-formed Winchester. Given the reduced capacity of military brass, you should reduce posted max loads by 1.5 grains when loading with Lake City or most other milsurp brass. However, the IMI MATCH brass is closer to commercial brass in internal case capacity (ICC). Kevin Beggs reports: “Fired, my IMI Match brass runs with an ICC of 55.0gr and bumping the shoulder back .001″ will net me an ICC average of 54.0gr. LAPUA runs an average of 54.4gr and Federal runs an average of 54.3gr ICC.”

Hope this helps you,
Ted
 
LC brass

The brass was the same cup dumped in 1st. draw as any other case match or nato but blank was a little thicker because it was longer. It changed at a operation called heading that headstamped it. It was knurled on headturn, the next operation, was the one I ran called taper, tapered the neck and made the final trim. Then it was out of our jurisdiction in the case area. Then it went to priming then loading, then inspection, then packing. That was from 82 to 94. Then I had a wreck and now Im disabled. They were doing things a little different then. I know they were buying bullets ,175s , from sierra. Maybe they just went in the camp perry stuff. All I did was one operation in the case area. Doug
 
Doug,
Nam war ended in '73/75.
Your 82-94 dates could include purchases of sie 175's but post Nam.
The only 175's in Nam would be an over weight( known variation) of the 173 bullet that was
fmjbt, but not hollow point. it was used in both 30'06 and 7.62x51 ammo.
 
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