commercial brass vs. military

[bull]

I recently aquired a contender barrel in 7mmTCU, along with dies and about 1000 pieces of brass,already formed and most ready to load. About 2/3  of the cases are military. Does anyone know if miltary brass is better or worse or more consistent than commercial? Should I even think about trying to sort them by arsenal, or year? I have already sorted the commercial by brand. Any other ideas??

[savageT]

bull,
I believe the military brass is heavier, thicker walled than commercial brass.  The result is it will hold less powder than commercial. Also, check to see if they are Berdan or Boxer primed.  If you can de-prime them check to see if the flash hole is centered as in Boxer, in the primer pocket, or two, non-centered flash holes as in Berdan.  Also, the Boxer method has the prime anvil as a small component of the primer while the Berdan method has the anvil as part of the case. Acquiring both does mean you must weed out the milsurps from commercial.

Jim

[bull]

They are all boxer primed. In fact all are sized, cleaned and ready for priming and loading. As far as weight, they seem to weigh a little less, 1 gr. +/-, than the commercials, at least according to my digital scale. I am just wondering if anyone has experience with mil brass being more consistent or producing better loads or anything like that.

[Mikey]

Bull:  I have used military brass in 30-06, 308 and 308 necked to 243 and have found that using the 308s necked to 243 caused me problems with my reloads.

In order to get the thicker neck of the military brass to chamber properly you have to chamfer the inside of the case mouth and sometimes this doesn't always work to your favor as you might not be able to get a good seat or seal on the bullet.  

I think that if I were to do it again I would simply purchase new brass in the correct caliber - the resizing and chamfering and yada and yada didn't always give me what I had hoped for or expected.  HTH.  Mikey.

[dakotashooter2]

I have to say my experience with military brass sized to 243 has been just the opposite of Mikey's.  The thicker necks have not caused a problem in either of my guns. Accuracy is comparable and with a few bullets better than that of commercial brass. My loads in the Mil brass are about 1/2 grain lighter thought and I generally get best accuracy at about 1 grain under max from both. I do separate mil brass by year though I've never really experimented to see if it makes a difference. I have some mixed stuff that is used for plinking and will still shoot around MOA with very little effort. All this really proves is that every gun is different.

[Blackhawk44]

The difference between govt. and commercial in .223 seems to be less drastic than in larger calibers.  Work up a load in the military you already have ready then load both types with the same load.  Try them.  I've had them stay in the same group before.  When those wear out, I'd replace with unfired commercial.

[KN]

I shoot mostly millitary brass in my 223s. I did a test in a 20" contender with 3 different headstamps all loaded to the same specs. There was a big difference in point of impact with the 3 different brands. All the brands grouped the same but the poi was different for each. 1'st one I zeroed at 100 meters, 2'nd brand grouped 3/4" high, and 3'rd brand group printed 3/4" low. So in my oppinion segregating headstamps is a must with brass. If you were to shoot this as a mixed bag your groups would be at over 1-1/5". Personally almost all of my brass is Lake city arsenal,(LC). And I think it is very good brass.   KN

[bull]

Thanks folks.  Well I guess if it keeps snowing maybe I'll have tome to sort some brass. Most seems to be Lake City, but there is also some WCC and another, VZZ or somethng like that. I wonder howmany old shoe boxes I can scare up?

[Questor]

My opinion may be a bit more terse than that of others: Life's to short to fool around with military brass.

There's no good reason to use it, and lots of reasons not to.  The main reason not to is safety. They don't have the same capacity as commercial brass.

Just get some Winchester brass and use that instead. The other stuff is recyclable.

[Jose Grande]

I bought a Turkish Mauser a while back in 8mm. I use U.S. military brass to make brass for it. It is more work, but I this brass is from my NRA Hi-Power shooting so I already have it. 8mm brass is high priced, & I don't care for surplus military 8mm ammo. I have had great results using this brass, mostly L.C.
WCC is Winchester of course. VZZ is Israeli. VZZ has always been good stuff in my experiance. They make the match ammo for the U.S. .45 pistol teams.

[mkerley1]

I load for the 7tcu contender. I use both military and factory bras, the only noticable difference I see is when I use mixed lot military brass the groups will open up a little, But not too much. I use factory for hunting and serious target work.
Mkerley

[Wlscott]

My opinion may be a bit more terse than that of others: Life's to short to fool around with military brass.

There's no good reason to use it, and lots of reasons not to. The main reason not to is safety. They don't have the same capacity as commercial brass.

Just get some Winchester brass and use that instead. The other stuff is recyclable.

I don't suppose you'd consider recycling it back to me would you?? :-D  :-D

It's pretty much all I use in my .223's.

[Siskiyou]

There is no unusual safety issues when using military brass for reloading when following basic sound reloading practices.  For years my friends and I have used 30-06 GI brass for reloading.  In addition I use 7.62 brass to create .300 Savage brass.  It makes up excellent loads.  I use RCBS small base dies for the 7.62 brass because it was first fired in a machine gun.  

You need a tool to remove the primer crimp.  If you get carried away you will have a lose primer and need to toss the brass.  Inspecting the brass after each step is a key to success.  This is as important with commerical brass as it is with military brass.  Very old 30-06 brass may have some issues because of mercury primers.  A little research will get you around those issues.  That should not be an issue with modern day .223 brass.  The primary issue will be primer type.