Well, I posted my experience. I'm the guy who broke the ammo down, repaired the gun and found all of the L.C. cases to have less capacity. Granted, I haven't measured the capacity of every .223/5.56 case on earth, but the three L.C. cases out of the 20 rds. of mixed brass that he reloaded were considerably smaller(internal capacity). The cases were cut on my bandsaw and the web was thicker on the L.C. cases. Maybe it was a bad lot, but it is vitually impossible for every case to be identical between manufacturers or even lots, that's why it's always recommended to start with a starting load instead of a max load.
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AR's
- Thread starter Garryzgarage
- Start date
Well, I posted my experience. I'm the guy who broke the ammo down, repaired the gun and found all of the L.C. cases to have less capacity. Granted, I haven't measured the capacity of every .223/5.56 case on earth, but the three L.C. cases out of the 20 rds. of mixed brass that he reloaded were considerably smaller(internal capacity). The cases were cut on my bandsaw and the web was thicker on the L.C. cases. Maybe it was a bad lot, but it is vitually impossible for every case to be identical between manufacturers or even lots, that's why it's always recommended to start with a starting load instead of a max load.
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- Jun 23, 2011
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It's pretty trivial to measure the internal capacity of a case. I've always heard military brass is thicker than commercial and all you'd have to do is measure the volume of water that can fit in a case or the weight of the unprimed case to prove it. I don't doubt it even though I've never confirmed it.
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I believe that this thread got a little sidetracked by the fact that this happened with 223 and 5.56 brass. The real issue here is more of a reloading issue. I have had the same experience in a different caliber. I inherited a type 38 Arisaka 6.5 x 51. I actually grew up with the rifle sitting in the corner of a closet. Ammo for these was very scarce and I really wanted to shoot it. Norma was the only ammo available, and it was high priced and hard to find. We had a few rounds , so I bought dies to reload and kept my eyes open for more brass. I found some at a gun show and worked up a load that shot great. Used about 10 cases to work up the load. Once I found the right combination, I loaded everything I had- about 25 rounds of brass with two different Norma headstamps - I didn't think anything about the headstamps being different, they were both Norma, right? I shot a few rounds, then, one was notably hotter - a little sticky extracting and a very flat primer! At first I thought I had messed up the charge weight, so I shot another round. Same results. I then noticed that these were the ones with the different headstamp. I pulled the bullets and weighed the charges in the rest of the ones with that headstamp and they were fine. Then I weighed the case. It was notably heavier than the ones I had used to work up the load. Just about every reloading manual or article I have read warns against substituting components, and many even warn against changing lots of brass. Small capacity / small calibers are usually the most sensitive. After that I do not mix lots of brass for rifle calibers, and I usually weigh at least a sample of any brass I reload. If it is heavier than what I had been using, I set it aside to work up a new load. I have found quite a variation of case weights in .222, .223, 5.56, 22 Hornet, .218 Bee and other small cases (.32 H&R Mag is another one - Starline has less capacity that Federal, usually), Now I wish I had written down the weights of each lot of brass so I could show how much variation I saw over the years! I may have to suggest this as an article to Handloader magazine - it would be interesting to see the results!
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- Oct 19, 2011
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Well I don't have anything to contribute to the brass casings discussion, so I'll just try to get the AR thread back on track with some talk about AR's.
I followed the link above to the Palmetto State Armory website for the $49 AR lower receiver. When I looked at the photo, I noticed it was marked ".223/5.56" on the magazine well. I wasn't keen on getting a lower that was marked specifically for .223 or 5.56 since I wanted the option of swapping the calibers without having to worry about getting hassled by anyone. That's not very likely around here where I live, but I travel to visit family and friends on occasion and don't want to have to keep up on the firearms laws of a bunch of different states and counties.
Looking around on the PSA website I found a just slightly more expensive ($59) option that is marked "MULTI" to allow for multiple calibers to allow any caliber to be used with the rifle without raising any eyebrows. It's listed as a "Blemished" part but most of the reviews I read all said pretty much the same thing, "Where's the blem?". The appear to have already sold out of the stockpile of blems they had on hand since I can't find the link anymore. I'm sure they will put the link back up when they have more, but I'm kinda suprised they took it down. Usually they leave the pages up and just mark them as "Out of stock" until they get more of them in. :thinking:
I wish I had seen this deal earlier, but here's the same lower I got with a PTAC Blackhawk Lower Parts Kit included with it for $79. It effectively makes this lower receiver cheaper than the $49 Anderson lower receiver linked to in the above post when you factor in the average cost of a LPK these days.
http://palmettostatearmory.com/inde...lower-and-ptac-blackhawk-lower-parts-kit.html
Of course when you have a lower receiver just laying around unused, you start getting ideas for it. So, I started poking around on PSA's website to see what they had in the "Complete rifle kits" section. No luck there, everything was listed as "Out of stock". Then I looked at the "Barreled upper assemblies" section and finally came across a couple of items that were listed as being in stock. While I have some AR spare parts already, I don't have any bolts, bolt carrier's or (good) charging handles, so I needed to look for an upper assembly that included those parts. I found a few options listed at $399 and after checking out the specs I settled on this one.
http://palmettostatearmory.com/inde...ac-16-1-9-a4-ss12g2-upper-w-bcg-ch-15599.html
I'll need to get an optic and some backup sights for it as well, since I don't have any extras of those right now. They have a couple of good deals on their website for that stuff but I'm out of money for now after getting the lower and upper assembly.
I've never dealt with PSA before so I'll let you all know what I think of their parts once I have them in hand.
I followed the link above to the Palmetto State Armory website for the $49 AR lower receiver. When I looked at the photo, I noticed it was marked ".223/5.56" on the magazine well. I wasn't keen on getting a lower that was marked specifically for .223 or 5.56 since I wanted the option of swapping the calibers without having to worry about getting hassled by anyone. That's not very likely around here where I live, but I travel to visit family and friends on occasion and don't want to have to keep up on the firearms laws of a bunch of different states and counties.
Looking around on the PSA website I found a just slightly more expensive ($59) option that is marked "MULTI" to allow for multiple calibers to allow any caliber to be used with the rifle without raising any eyebrows. It's listed as a "Blemished" part but most of the reviews I read all said pretty much the same thing, "Where's the blem?". The appear to have already sold out of the stockpile of blems they had on hand since I can't find the link anymore. I'm sure they will put the link back up when they have more, but I'm kinda suprised they took it down. Usually they leave the pages up and just mark them as "Out of stock" until they get more of them in. :thinking:
I wish I had seen this deal earlier, but here's the same lower I got with a PTAC Blackhawk Lower Parts Kit included with it for $79. It effectively makes this lower receiver cheaper than the $49 Anderson lower receiver linked to in the above post when you factor in the average cost of a LPK these days.
http://palmettostatearmory.com/inde...lower-and-ptac-blackhawk-lower-parts-kit.html
Of course when you have a lower receiver just laying around unused, you start getting ideas for it. So, I started poking around on PSA's website to see what they had in the "Complete rifle kits" section. No luck there, everything was listed as "Out of stock". Then I looked at the "Barreled upper assemblies" section and finally came across a couple of items that were listed as being in stock. While I have some AR spare parts already, I don't have any bolts, bolt carrier's or (good) charging handles, so I needed to look for an upper assembly that included those parts. I found a few options listed at $399 and after checking out the specs I settled on this one.
http://palmettostatearmory.com/inde...ac-16-1-9-a4-ss12g2-upper-w-bcg-ch-15599.html
I'll need to get an optic and some backup sights for it as well, since I don't have any extras of those right now. They have a couple of good deals on their website for that stuff but I'm out of money for now after getting the lower and upper assembly.
I've never dealt with PSA before so I'll let you all know what I think of their parts once I have them in hand.
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- Jun 19, 2012
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sign up for the mailer from psa there is a sale item every day @ 12pm they offer the lower for 49 or 59 fairly regularly. they also offer a full upper with bcg/ch for 299/399 pretty often too. be careful because depending on timing it might or might not include the bolt and handle.
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- Jul 30, 2012
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My experience with PSA has always been good. They have very good prices and service and their quality is good as well. Not "stuck in a hell hole and my life depends on it" good, but "good enough for 99.9% of AR shooting" good.
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- Jun 23, 2011
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They are so good that they are always swamped and subsequently ship a little slowly. They do things right, so that's OK by me.
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- Oct 19, 2011
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I've got a spare M4 stock and buffer tube for this build but I still need the castle nut, latch plate, buffer and buffer spring. Found the Mil-Spec versions of those parts on PSA's website for $30.80 with shipping. So all in all, after I get those parts I'll have a total of $569.77 in this build and will only be lacking the sights to finish it off. Not too bar for a functional AR these days. Even just a few months ago I wouldn't have thought it was possible to build one for anywhere near that price again due to the politically induced buying frenzy of guns, gun parts and ammo.
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Thing is AR parts are coming down, seems most folks that were frenzy buying have slowed down and on the other hand allot of AR parts manufactures after months of frenzy manufacturing have built up supplies, so expect to see the supply and demand thing work....
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- Dec 19, 2013
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I agree 100% price and demand are dropping for sure and on ammo as well. I am going to build an AR10 next in .308 I already have a complete lower built for an AR15 and that is getting a 300 blackout upper. Then I will have 3 AR's all in different calibers and for different purposes.
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