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LC 85 308 Match Brass w/cannelure

11K views 31 replies 8 participants last post by  30Cal 
#1 ·
I have acquired a quantity of once fired 308 Lake City Match brass, dated 1985, that has what appears to be a faint cannelure on the outside of the case just above the web. I have not run across this before, but I also don't get that much match brass for reloading either. For you Competition Shooters/Reloaders that have have experience with 308 Match Lake City brass, is this brass OK to reload? In the same batch, I also came across LC 79 Match brass that had no 'cannelure'. If it is OK to reload, why was the cannelure put on?
I usually don't get over to this side of Amback, lurking mostly on the M1 side, but I am putting together a M1 in 308 and have been getting components together for reloading. Thanks in advance.
 
#2 ·
bsmd,

The 1985 dated LC match brass is known as M852 and was originally loaded with a 168gr Sierra MatchKing bullet. Since this bullet has a hollowpoint, the gov't put the cannelure on the case to indicate that this ammo was not to be used in combat. The LC match brass without the cannelure is M118, and was originally loaded with a 173gr FMJBT bullet. Both are OK to reload, although is some controversy regarding the cannelure and case head separations.

Don
 
#3 ·
I currently have five reloads on 50 LC "MATCH" cases. There has never been any issue with it, it has the cannelure. After the next load I will scrap it, and start with fresh match cases. My SA NM M1-A is shooting 3/4 inch, prone, off bags. I use 42 grains of IMR 4895, and a Moly-Coated 168 Sierra Match King.

The brass has no obvious signs of stress, I resize the cases a few thousands smaller than the chamber of the rifle, that allows for proper feeding, reduced case wear, and reportedly better accuracy. I have no complaints.

I use standard LC cases for my Beretta Garand, as well as a LRB/TRW M14 clone. Again, great reliability and long life, those are topped with 147grbt pull downs. That combo shoots fine in those rifles.

HTH, I'm a little new at this, but seem to be having pretty good success with my reloading.
 
#4 ·
rightwinggunnut said:
...I resize the cases a few thousands smaller than the chamber of the rifle, that allows for proper feeding, reduced case wear, and reportedly better accuracy.
RWGN,

I'd say your not oversizing the brass is the key to getting a sufficient number of reloads per case. Carry on!

Don
 
#6 ·
Is this correct ?

The 168 SMK tipped LC Match with cannelure = M852. This round, due to the it's non- expanding HP is / was to only be used for practice & match events.

Then how is the M118 with its non - expanding 175 gr. SMK "certified for combat use" ? Bureaucracy ?

Just a curio :wink:
 
#7 ·
168 bad, 175 good. Yep you got it. When the MTU screamed enough to get the 168s loaded in MATCH ammo there were those legalistic panzy types who started screaming Geneva Convention and that our reputation would be ruined because we were loading the big bad hollow point ammo. The Convention simply states that you cannot design a round whose intent is to cause more violent wounding.
We can thank Col Martin Fackler of the Army Wound Ballistic Lab for getting that changed as he pushed it single handedly and did gelatin testing and determined the 168 was no more deadly than the 173 Match bullet or the 150 FMJBT and Sierra made the statement that their bullet was designed solely for match shooting and there was no intent in their design to cause excessive terminal wounding effects and it got through.

I was at Picatinny at the time and the test section was charged with developing the load and LC sent a sample of propellent they wanted to load in the first lot. Picatinny had a RCBS loading tool but they did not have 308 loading dies so the Chief of the Test Section as if he could borrow my dies so they could develop their test loads. I brought my dies in and the work started.

A Test Technician named Betty Babbitt loaded the initial test rounds to develop the charge of propellent to be used in the first lot of M852.

I got to Perry where they passed it out in the Leg Match and opened the box and the ID marking around the base was on the case. Immediately everyone started screaming it would cause case failures and no one had fired the first round in competition much less picked it up and reloaded it. Since all the self proclaimed experts had already stated it would cause a problem and had not fired the first round the title stuck and everyone is still screaming it.

When I got back to Picatinny I took empties to Chief of Small Arms Section (who used to work at FA) and he started checking. Some wannabee rocket scientist out at LC came up with the bright idea that US would be excoriated in the world press so he came up with all the warnings and had the idea that the marks would alert everyone that the ammo was different.

Well it got made and as time passed on till late 80s Fackler started the work to make it available to snipers. So originally it was a target round only, then Fackler pushed for adoption for sniper use.

The 168 in 308/7.62 goes subsonic around 950 yards and starts to YAW (tumble) and the rounds came in and made elongated holes in target at 1000 yards and they were subsonic. They still shot quite well even though they were yawing.

The service teams started screaming they needed a heavier bullet to retain the velocity longer and remain stable at 1000 yards like the 173 grain MATCH bullet did and the 175 was born to meet this demand. Since the 168 HP had already been given the OK, it was easy to get the 175 accepted for sniper use as well.

The Service teams had been handloading for years and they were wrecking guns right and left because the port pressure from heavy bullets was overdriving the gas system on 14s. Thus to lower the port pressures they started a variety of things to lower the gas pressures on the system like cutting long slots in gas piston and finally they drilled the very small holes in the end of the gas plug. They had to get authorization from RIA to make that mod.

The Army match program started to die when L. F. Moore retired. He was a renowned long range shooter and dedicated to competition is the highest sense and since he liked match competition and helped where he could tings got done.
I was his recommendation to be hired at the Small Cal Lab and they tagged me with match stuff and of course I did not mind.

If you check the drawings for the 300 yard repair center and the 600 yard target you will find my name on the drawings as the originator. I did other changes as well like the rough sling material for M1 slings in now on the drawing and the green slick crap is off the drawing. Trouble is they don't procure them any more.

The Service Teams were constantly bitching about they wanted this and wanted that and the non shooters at RIA got irritated at listening to them and they could do nothing as long as Larry was chairman of the Configuration Control Board. Larry retired in 1979 and that left the non match people in charge and they started killing the match support every way they could as they did not want the headaches.
They have done a excellent job at killing it too.

How do I know this, they engineer at RIA in charge of that section told me directly to my face he planned on killing it because of the bitching he had to endure.

So 168 bad, 175 good at first now both are good so enjoy it while you got it because there are those that will kill it as soon as they can. Believe me there are folks in engineering area that despise competition shooters as it causes them more work and if you think about your job, wouldn't you be happy doing less for the same amount of money?????

Now you know the rest of the story.
 
#8 ·
One reason I reload is to save money and produce more accurate ammo than my wallet can afford. The LC with the cannelure will never see my dies again. I got two loadings and started getting partial seperations. The neck tension from the M852 wasn't enough to combat bullet set-back during chambering in any of my M1A's...I'd be more worried about set-back in the Garand with the stronger spring. The older '79 cases you have without the cannelure would be my go to brass. HTH
 
#9 ·
Hummer said:
When the MTU screamed enough to get the 168s loaded in MATCH ammo there were those legalistic panzy types who started screaming Geneva Convention and that our reputation would be ruined because we were loading the big bad hollow point ammo.
Actually, that would be the Hague Convention that deals with bullets "designed" to expand. So, Hummer, are you saying that the cannelure was put on the case PRIOR to the legal decision being made that we would not use this round in combat? That doesn't make sense.

Don
 
#10 ·
M1ALover said:
I got two loadings and started getting partial seperations.
Did we ever discuss your chamber dims. ? i.e. - Your sized brass web dims. juxtaposed to the fired ones at the same location ? Is the diff (+) two thou." ? If not, astonishing, as to why (separations)
M1AL said:
The neck tension from the M852 wasn't enough to combat bullet set-back during chambering in any of my M1A's
Are you using a FL Bushing Die ? You can adjust that in thou.'' increments depending on what you got . . . Comml., NATO or 7.62 MATCH .298 to .333 and maybe more. :wink:

Then - Get yourself a .30 Cal. (Long) Mandrel Expanding Die and you can adjust your expansion appropriately. Hornady & Lyman are two mfgrs. of those. There are others I'm sure. Lyman a bargain @ about 12 bucks ! No slouch of a die either.
 
#11 ·
Yep, when the samples left Picatinny they were loaded in standard primed MATCH cases and no one knew anything at PA until we opened the boxes issued to us at Perry for the National Trophy/Leg Match. My boss thought it rather stupid that LC thought the little lines would make any difference to a bunch of GIs for if they did not read the box, a series of lines would be useless.
Then again he said if a bunch of GIs got that dropped to them in combat there is no doubt in his mind they would get shot.

Most of the zips shot in SE Asia were shot with 168s. My friend had his reloading operation sent to him and he spent hours pulling 173s and reseating 168s in them.

They only carried one magazine with 168s figuring the sniper would most likely empty a magazine before going down and all they would have would be a bunch of empty brass with MATCH on them. I can check with him Monday as I am going over to see him and get the full details.

I know it sounds crazy but if you saw happen what I saw happen you would not be surprised and anything you heard coming out of there.

You would not believe the incompetance about firearms I witnessed. One day I walked into test range and there was a pile of wrapping and a pile of M60 barrels (two dozen at least) laying there, all ruined.

Someone had the bright idea of using tungsten carbide penetrators in plastic sabots. Only problem is upon firing the penetrator separated from the sabot and yawed touching barrel and carved long grooves in barrels. Generally on the first shot, sometimes they fired three rounds before it happened and they just kept shooting and ruining brand new M60 barrels.

Fortunately they scrapped the project after they scrapped the barrels. That was about 10 grand worth of barrels that went to the scrap heap that never got warm much less hot.

Believe me guys shooters led a lonely life there and we identified each other quickly and we got along fine. The rest of them we had to tolerate.

I had a guy call one day and he had this idea of loading up M80 pressure ammo in plastic cases. Yet all plastic cases. I talked him out of that saving a few million.

Another guy in large cal called and wanted to mount a M14 receiver on a 8" howitzer breech block and use a special blank round in lieu of the normal round used. Idea was to speed up firing. I told him I thought it would not work. Wanted to tell him what is really sounded like. Guy called back a couple weeks later and told me they had mounted M14 receiver/action of 8" breech block and fired it. When they went out to look at the gun after one round the action was gone. Took them about 30 minutes to find the receiver haha. It blew right off the back of the gun shearing the threads on the way out haha.

Yeah I guess it was Hague or Democratic Convention or some such nonsense. Funny though the 150 gr. FMJBT is one of the most lethal rounds you can get hit with due to the tumbling action upon striking the body.

Some of the stuff I saw would make you want to roll on floor laughing your ass off, other stuff would make you cry like cutting up pre 64 Model 70 Winchesters. Still makes me sick. Were they neat? Yep, two digit serial numbers to boot ! ! ! ! ! !
 
#13 ·
30 Cal. That will sure do it. Sounds like you need a Mo Gage so you can set your dies to size just below what you are getting on fired cases.

Has someone already cut your die base off or did you get that one new? I have had to cut a number of die bases off but have yet to find one like you did.

Next question what is diameter of your fired cases? I suspect your fired case will be around .472 at base and your die is sizing them back to around .467?
 
#14 ·
Ty, it sounds like you changed your mind, and are coming around to the ways of the knurled brass!?!

Hummer, I have a really hard time getting any brass down to .467". A SB 308 die does about 468, and a 30-06 die works pretty well as a 308SB die, getting a bit closer to 467".

I have also been grinding off the bottom of an old 3006 die, but still need to grind more. This new chamber from Hook is pretty darn tight!

I think my std dies only get to 469 or so before the shoulder gets pushed back too much.


Dave
 
#15 ·
Dave,
Your dimensions sound right. You don't need to have a die that sizes smaller than .468 for 308 as that is LC size when new. These will load in M1 clip fine.

Late Model 70s don't like neck sized for rapid fire as the last round gets hard to seat under the rim.

If you can set your die to bump shoulder back .002 and reduce body diameter no more that .002 (my 2X2 rule haha) you should get much longer case life. The adjustable gage is a Godsend for this application so you will know exactly where you are.
 
#16 ·
I don't really have any issues with using the knurled brass. I just think you need to be more careful with how you size it.

The die I was using when I had my separations was a Dillon Carbide FL sizer used on a Dillon press, so you'd think that the manufacturers' instructions ("thread the die fully down till it contacts, then back off...") would have been adequate. Unfortunately, I sold the die, so I can't get any measurements. That was also in my original SA Inc/Douglas barrel, 1.6315" headspace, where a 168 Sierra would hit the lands at 2.85"

Lots of people have said that the Dillon dies are the same as SB, but I have found that to be not true. The new barrel I got which barely closes on a .308Win GO gage won't accept the resized brass run through that die. Very tight chamber. A 168gr Sierra is against the lands at 2.82". I had to order a Redding SB die to make the cases work.

Ty
 
#17 ·
blusteel said:
Is this correct ?

The 168 SMK tipped LC Match with cannelure = M852. This round, due to the it's non- expanding HP is / was to only be used for practice & match events.

Then how is the M118 with its non - expanding 175 gr. SMK "certified for combat use" ? Bureaucracy ?

Just a curio :wink:
How about "Special Ball" ? IIRC - This round was a 173 FMJ @ 2,600 FPS . . . Were They NATO crimped type (primer) cases ?

Finally "LC LR" - Was this the "Special Balls'" successor . . . . in that it featured the new SMK 175 ?

Thanks & Best ! :wink:
 
#18 ·
The Special Ball was pure garbage. That is not only my opinion but everyone I knew. The Service Teams let their new shooters burn it up as their top shooters didn't want it in their guns. Loaded with ball propellant and 173s in Brown Box and referred to as such. It was so screwed up the first boxes had paper lables and they misspelled the name. It was printed as SPECAL BALL ! ! ! ! ! I think I might have a box of it somewhere I kept just for the lable. If I run across it I will photograph it. So if you hear the term SPECAL BALL, that is what it is. That screw up did not help LC's reputation haha.

Insofar as non expanding Col Fackler found that out. Well let me back up, the first testing done at Picatinny was very scientific as they shot health food. Yep they shot watermelons and also gelatin but in those days there was no standardized gelatin then Fackler came along and established the standard for all gelatin testing from then on as his method had repeatability and was correlated with X rays.

Fackler found out the MKs did not mushroom/expand and behaved much like ball and with that data in hand it shut the Yabut crowd up and it got adopted. The 175 is quite good.

I have a friend who is a retired Major (infantry/MP) and for months every time he got his retirement check he ordered a wirebound from CMP. I guess he must have 20 cases laid in, He has two Chandler rifles and one already has 10,000 rounds on it.

When the M24 Sniper Rifle program got moving I got a call from my contact at Remington and believe it or not they wanted Brown Box to test their prototypes with as that is what they were going to be tested with. Remington had lost the LC contract and they could not get any and luckily I knew some service rifle shooters that had a couple cases and they despised the stuff and a trade was orchestrated and the service rifle boys were tickled to get rid of it and get something decent in trade.

As well the Army got a decent sniper rifle out of the deal. That is one fine system. They were allowed to change barrels during the feasibility testing at I believe it was 6000 rounds but it was doing so well it went the whole way to 10,000 rounds with same barrel and it was still shooting acceptance accuracy at 10,000.

I understand from the Engineer in Charge of the M24 that before he retired he went to Benning and observed sniper school and examined log books and theirs had 15,000 rounds on them and not shot out yet.
 
#19 ·
M118 SB hasn't been that bad in my experience. I was an infantry shool trained and assigned B4 for several years and with my stick I could shoot the plastic spindle out of the paster that marked the previous shot out to 580 meters. When we got to 600 my groups opened up a bit and I would hit the white side of the cardboard paster. I agree that M118 SB was loaded with ball powder...as long as all we shot through our stick was M118 SB we were golden...start working on come-ups for tracer marks and such that were loaded with stick propellant and the SB would look like a 12ga. The M118 SB did give some excellent brass for reloading and the primer crimp was easy to remove. Just a few turns of a case mouth chamfer would take care of it quick :wink:
 
#20 ·
Thanks for all the replies. If I am getting this all straight... the cannelure may/may not be responsible for head separations, but all agree it was a poor place to 'mark' the cases. Most important, is how far back the shoulder is set back during resizing. Correct? I'll start off with mild loads and keep my bent paperclip handy to check for incipient head separations after each firing, discarding cases after 3-5 reloads. Thanks again.
 
#21 ·
Most important, is how far back the shoulder is set back during resizing.

I like Hummers 2x2 rule.

Set the shoulder back 2 mils or maybe 4 but no more, that is what I do. I have to force myself to discard cases. Just started annealling them too.

Sometimes it hurts be be cheap frugal!
 
#22 ·
0.002-0.004" average shoulder setback is good.

When you measure you're fired and sized brass, there's going to be a fair amount of variation, just so you know what to expect.

I've never annealed a case. I toss them after 5x and haven't seen problems with neck splits on LC 89NM or LC90-91.
 
#23 ·
0.002-0.004" average shoulder setback is good.

When you measure you're fired and sized brass, there's going to be a fair amount of variation, just so you know what to expect.

I've never annealed a case. I toss them after 5x and haven't seen problems with neck splits on LC 89NM or LC90-91.
 
#24 ·
blusteel said:
blusteel said:
Is this correct ?

The 168 SMK tipped LC Match with cannelure = M852. This round, due to the it's non- expanding HP is / was to only be used for practice & match events.

Then how is the M118 with its non - expanding 175 gr. SMK "certified for combat use" ? Bureaucracy ?

Just a curio :wink:
How about "Special Ball" ? IIRC - This round was a 173 FMJ @ 2,600 FPS . . . Were They NATO crimped type (primer) cases ?

Finally "LC LR" - Was this the "Special Balls'" successor . . . . in that it featured the new SMK 175 ?

Thanks & Best ! :wink:
Thought you all might find this dated promotion of the then new M118LR ammo interesting.

Don

[IMG=left]http://www.ussr.baka.com/M118long.jpg[/IMG]
 
#25 ·
I love that kind of literature :wink:

I also like their "dream trajectory" Ha HA ! (Lower Left)

Maybe they were just overhead @ noon on that one :lol:

Thanks Don !

That's a keeper !

I wonder if the ordnance contract was coming to a close just after that literature was released ?

Said literature is most unusual, as it's distribution was not a appeal to the commercial realm.
 
#26 ·
blusteel said:
I wonder if the ordnance contract was coming to a close just after that literature was released ?
blu,

Winchester was to give up their Lake City concession a couple of years later (1999 or 2000) to ATK who presently runs it. Since the ad states that production was to begin in October 1997 (fiscal year 1998), I suspect the first cases were headstamped "98", which is the earliest of this brass I have seen. You will note that the ad states "Improved M825 (sic) Match Case". What I want to know is, did they simply remove the stupid cannelure and put a different headstamp on it, or did they redesign the case and perhaps go with brand new tooling?

Don
 
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