LC 71 Match Brass

pawnee66

I found some loaded LC 71 Match the other day. I was going to toss them but I thought the brass might still be OK so I pulled the bullets. What is your opinion on using 41 year old new brass?

Cheechako

I assume they were handloads? Otherwise, why pull the bullets? Anyway, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the cases. They all had a neck anneal so are not prone to splitting. I've used GI brass that's a lot older than 1971.

OTOH, if they were reloads, you'd have to consider how many times they may have been reloaded, whether they were hot loads, and what sort of rifle they were fired in.

OTOH, OTOH, 7.62mm brass is relatively common so it doesn't have much of a premium, even when new.

charliemeyer007

Really old brass that had mercury primers or not cleaned black powder residue are problems.

I have ammo and brass loaded from the late 70 when I got out of the army. Still good. Have some Remington Golden bullet 22 LR from the 60's that is way better than most of the crap they sell these days.

In the late 60's I shot up a shoe box of loose ammo marked IIRC 1918 Olympic Match that had a hang fire of like 7 seconds.

jonk

Just loaded some 30-06 brass from 1910 last night. I got a bag of 500 from an antique store for 5 dollars in 2001. Using light cast lead loads and neck sizing, very few have failed, and all that have failed have been harmless neck cracks. 1971 isn't even slightly vintage in my book.

pawnee66

It wasn't reloads. The reason I pulled the bullets was to reload with 168 gr SMKs & 44 grs of RE15 to feed my AR-10. Thanks for the info.

Kirk out.

Cheechako

You didn't ask for my opinion but here it is anyway.

It's too late now but the original Match ammo was loaded with IMR 4895. Simply pulling the bullet and replacing it with a SMK would have resulted in "Mexican Match" which was the first choice of shooters in those days. The bullet makes all the difference, not the powder.

And, have you shot 44 grains of Re 15 before? That's a warm load to start with and Re 15 is noted for it's sensitivity to temp changes. But, I'm sure you know what you're doing.

End of opinions.

Ray