Poll: Lake City vs Sig Sauer brass

[GFO270]

I'm interested in ya'll's two cents on how to best allocate my brass. I have 3k once fired Sig Sauer Brass, and another 3k Lake city brass (years 07,08, and 18)

My plan is to load 3,000 plinking rounds with Xtreme 147gr 308 bullets, 1k 175gr SMK, 1k 168gr SMK, and 1k ish of a hunting load yet to be determined.

My question is which brass would you use for these loads. My thought is either all SIG brass for the plinking ammo and LC for the match/hunting or Vice Versa.

Thoughts?

Read More

 

[DizzyJ]

No idea who makes Sig brass. Lake city has given me good results as long as I sort by headstamp (year) and weight.

 

[Local Loader]

I'm personally a fan of PPU brass, I've had good results with theirs. Not overly familiar with sig brass and LC shoots fine for plinking brass.

 

[po18guy]

One way to find out. 50 of each should give you the final answer. If you have LC Match, the weights are carefully controlled. Otherwise, military brass tends to be thicker and softer than commercial - slightly less capacity, which is not a worry for nearly all uses. Commercial brass tends to be formulated with the possibility of reloading in mind. Thus, the brass mixture "might" be better in the long run. But, we are talking differences of degree here.

 

[Member 34319]

Either, for what it sounds like you are doing, I'm not really sure it would matter.

If you are going to be working up loads before bull loading, then perhaps one will make itself known as the better of the two during your testing.

 

[gmerkt]

Commercial brass tends to be formulated with the possibility of reloading in mind. Thus, the brass mixture "might" be better in the long run.

Good question. What I've wondered:

1. Do they even care? Meaning, economy of manufacture is likely more important to them.

2. Or on the other hand, maybe they would rather see less reloading of their product, which might mean more new ammo sales.

3. Anything they make has to be robust enough to reasonably avoid product failure that results in liability claims and lawsuits.

Apropos of nothing, I was prepping some RP .30-06 brass last week. These had all been reloaded by me previously. I found a hitherto unnoticed fold in the shoulder of one case. It was good enough to take at least two firings. But once discovered, I didn't want to use it again.

 

[po18guy]

Military ammo must fire once. Normally, it is then sold as scrap. Hard to sue for faulty brass that was sold as scrap. Military Match brass is more tightly controlled, but they do not reload. Belt-fed guns need brass that will not rupture, even in max-spec chambers, so military brass is thicker.
Sig can be sued and so their brass must meet SAAMI spec.

 

[kmk1012]

My only input is that a while back (2+years) I purchased some new factory Sig 300blk subsonic rounds as I finally got my new suppressor. It cracked the neck about 7 out of a box of 20 rounds. This was with two different rifles so I assumed it's the brass and not a chamber cut issue. Could have been a single lot issue but it's always given me pause when reloading it. Others have mentioned that LC ammo is made to go bang every time and has a long history so my choice would be clear here. But, as a side note, I came across a great deal on 1k pieces of all Sig 308 brass and bought it. Haven't had a single issue at all.