Brass shortage??

I went to the range Friday. It was -5 wind chill so not much shooting. It was just the Range Master myself and a stranger. The stranger was shooting an AR 15 and the brass was flying everywhere. He cleaned up the brass and I am now polishing it. Now to the shortage. All 200 cartridges are either LC 09 or WCC 09. How can there be a shortage due to military demands when 09 brass is available to the general public? I do not know where he got his stuff as it was loaded in mags when he arrived so no empty boxes and he was not military or L E O.

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Originally Posted by Bad Water Bill

I went to the range Friday. It was -5 wind chill so not much shooting. It was just the Range Master myself and a stranger. The stranger was shooting an AR 15 and the brass was flying everywhere. He cleaned up the brass and I am now polishing it. Now to the shortage. All 200 cartridges are either LC 09 or WCC 09. How can there be a shortage due to military demands when 09 brass is available to the general public? I do not know where he got his stuff as it was loaded in mags when he arrived so no empty boxes and he was not military or L E O.

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two places. mabye three
one..ammo out of storage has a limted life and must be salvaged if not shot....milsurplus.
two..ammo built out of spec but safe to shoot...again milsurplus
three. black hills has a contract of some sort with the army(?) to furnish target ammo, it appears part of the payment is once fired recent brass.....as in 07/08/09...
maybe four...lake city contractor selling ammo....maybe part of two.

mike in co

All of the brass is military crimped and red seal on brass primers. Could out of storage have such a short life (all is 09) . When I saw the 09 I checked the garbage and burn bbls hoping to find a Black Hills or something else there but no luck.

I've seen FC 09 and WCC 09 ammo sold as civilian ammo in boxes on the shelves. The XM762 .308 ammo uses FC08 and FC09 new brass with sealed, crimped primers.

While there is an ammo "shortage" it's not at the military level; as a matter of fact, use of ammo has actually reduced slightly over the past year. There's lots of new production stuff that got seconded out for civilian use when the military contract was overrun.

I got a whole crapload of WCC09 9mm pistol cases, all with crimped primers, in the last batch of range brass I got in, and it was fired in ammo bought at the range.

Did you talk to the stranger and see if he was reserve by chance? That's another way he could have that 09 head stamp. I know we put it in our pockets and I'm sure that the practice has not changed

Im finding alot....and I mean alot of .308 WCC 09 brass at our range,,,,scrounged about close to 200 rounds yesterday...
I also find buckets full of .223 brass again WCC 09,,,I don't scrounge this since I don't shoot that caliber

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Originally Posted by Bad Water Bill

All of the brass is military crimped and red seal on brass primers. Could out of storage have such a short life (all is 09) . When I saw the 09 I checked the garbage and burn bbls hoping to find a Black Hills or something else there but no luck.

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that just eliminates one source, and there is a posibility his command let him have some for practice???....do not know if there is any rules against iit. a simple case would be excess ammo issued for training, exposed to temps, cannot be restocked, has to be scraped...so let the guys "practice' with it.

eliminates alot of paper work...

mike in co

American Eagle brand 223 will have lc09 cases a lot of the time.

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Originally Posted by cajun shooter

Did you talk to the stranger and see if he was reserve by chance? That's another way he could have that 09 head stamp. I know we put it in our pockets and I'm sure that the practice has not changed

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That would be my guess. I worked with a guy who was a logistics officer with the Army Reserve. He always had lots of ammo and MREs. Something about not being able to turn it back in....

The white box Winchester has WCC headstamps. It could have come from Wally World or anyplace else that sells ammo.

Jerry

Are you sure he wasn't military? Some units can take ammo for practice. I've seen guys from 20th Group at the range where I shoot, and you could have 19th Group guys in your area. There is also the issue of returning ammo. A friend who was an armorer for ST 6 said that in order to avoid inventory issues, partial boxes used to get dumped in bins for practice. You could take as much as you wanted as long as you were shooting it, not reselling it.

If he really wasn't mil/LEO, odds are he just bought it. Ammoman advertises lake City all the time and may have recent vintage ammo.

lc ammo that does not pass the dunk test is often sold as surplus. 5-6 years ago,to best of my memory,sportsmans guide had 5.56 at 20 some cents a round by the thousand. i purchased a couple and according to a family member who works there that is most likely why it was available.

We pick up brass at the gravel pit here (We don't have a 'range" folks shoot where ever they feel like) that is often dated the year we pick it up. I think that folks who work on the army base sneak it out, and then shooting, sell it, or give it friends.

I manage to pick up a few hundred 223 a month and alot are 09 stamped LC as well.[smilie=1:

hmmmmm.......ok

Most of it is seconds that didn't meet mil standards. They pull some from a batch and if any don't meet specs the whole batch is rejected.

If a lot fails QA and is safe, the whole lot ends up in bulk if LC or white boxes if WCC and is sold on the civilian market. At one point, I had ~4k of LC05 or 06 that some rounds ~5% had smears of green paint from the green tipping operation on the case body. Bought it in bulk as cosmetic defect military ammo. Came in US ammo cans all with the same lot number on them. Just inspected, cleaned them up, and shot them. My buddy just shot them without bothering to clean the smear of paint off on the ones that had it, but his weren't going through a 10k MG. Think I paid 20 cents a round plus shipping. Should have bought a pallet as it shot great, but I bought 10k of British SS109 for 18 cents out the door at the next gunshow instead. Shoots good too, but no green tip. Those were the days. Every time I try to move the 20mil can full of 5.56 brass in my shop I am reminded of them.

-yarro