Does Lake City brass have a month code on the headstamp?

[jimwsea]

I was sorting out brass that I picked up in the woods. There was a bunch of Lake City .223 marked LC 08. When holding the brass to read the headstamp, I noticed that there is a "placeholder" for an indent or punch mark between the LC and the 08 on the lower part, as well as two sets of places to mark or punch on either side of the NATO logo.

These "placeholders" are mostly shallow, with one or two of them actually being punched deeper. Then I noticed that the casings have different combination of actual indents.

It got me wondering if Lake City has some kind of code for the month of manufacture? Anybody out there know something about this?

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[G1GRANDEUR]

Year is the closest you can get. The only markings on the cases are LC for Lake City, the NATO symbol, and the year.

 

[KCB]

Yeah what he said.

 

[madcratebuilder]

LC is 5.56 brass. The head stamp is year only, the packaging well show lot # and that well tell you YMD.

 

[jimwsea]

I attached a photo of five random casings. Notice that all of them have five punch mark locations (10, 11, 1, 2, 6 o'clock), but the deeper indents vary from casing to casing. The deeper punch mark patterns are what I'm wondering about.

From right to left, using the NATO mark as 12 o'clock, note the deeper punch marks on each casing:
#1 Marks at 6 and 10 o'clock
#2 Marks at 11 and 2 o'clock
#3 Marks at 11, 1 and 2 o'clock
#4 Marks at 11 and 1 o'clock
#5 Marks at 10, 11, 1 and 6 o'clock

My question has to do with what do these marks mean? Are these were some kind of batch or month code? If so, all the ammo in a single box of ammo may have indents in the same positions and not catch someone's attention. The brass I'm showing were picked up in the woods.

I know what LC 08 and the NATO stamp mean. Does anyone know what the punch marks are all about?