50 BMG primer pockets?

[courteousgavin]

I have a chance to pick up some once fired Lake City 50 BMG brass with a 2005 headstamp. But the area around the primer pockets doesn't look normal compared to LC brass in smaller calibers. There is kind of a recessed cressent shape on one side of the primer, not as deep as the primer pocket. Is normal for Lake City 50 BMG brass? I can try to take a picture to show what it looks like, but figured maybe somebody could tell what I'm talking about without a picture if it is normal. The pictures of Lake City 50 BMG primer pockets I found using Google didn't have the cressent shape, but they were all of 1980's or earlier brass.

[Fjold]

I have a chance to pick up some once fired Lake City 50 BMG brass with a 2005 headstamp. But the area around the primer pockets doesn't look normal compared to LC brass in smaller calibers. There is kind of a recessed cressent shape on one side of the primer, not as deep as the primer pocket. Is normal for Lake City 50 BMG brass? I can try to take a picture to show what it looks like, but figured maybe somebody could tell what I'm talking about without a picture if it is normal. The pictures of Lake City 50 BMG primer pockets I found using Google didn't have the cressent shape, but they were all of 1980's or earlier brass.

It's probably just an uneven crimp on the primer.

[CSACANNONEER]

I wouldn't be concerned about LC 05 primmer pockets being a problem. But, I have become very leary of once fired brass. Most of it has been fired from a M2 and many of the M2s currently in use have excessive headspacing. This causes the case to "grow" too much and can cause case head separation or at least reduced brass life. If this is once fired M2 brass, be aware of potential problems and get a broken case remover!

[Hunter]

I have a chance to pick up some once fired Lake City 50 BMG brass with a 2005 headstamp. But the area around the primer pockets doesn't look normal compared to LC brass in smaller calibers. There is kind of a recessed cressent shape on one side of the primer, not as deep as the primer pocket. Is normal for Lake City 50 BMG brass? I can try to take a picture to show what it looks like, but figured maybe somebody could tell what I'm talking about without a picture if it is normal. The pictures of Lake City 50 BMG primer pockets I found using Google didn't have the cressent shape, but they were all of 1980's or earlier brass.

You are looking at the primer crimp that is applied to the .50 BMG primers. They use to have three "stakes" but now all current cases have a circular crimp on them.

You may need to swage the primer pockets (too remove the crimp) in order to put in a new primer. But this is standard fair for .50 BMG reloading, nothing to worry about.

[Hunter]

I wouldn't be concerned about LC 05 primmer pockets being a problem. But, I have become very leary of once fired brass. Most of it has been fired from a M2 and many of the M2s currently in use have excessive headspacing. This causes the case to "grow" too much and can cause case head separation or at least reduced brass life. If this is once fired M2 brass, be aware of potential problems and get a broken case remover!

I agree that this brass is almost all 100% fire from a m2hb gun and the points made here on the issue with the cases. But the truth is also that essentially all (as in 98+% of the brass on the market today) are once-fired military brass. There really is no new brass currently available. So, you just need to realize that you will loose 5-10% right off the bat when you give them a good inspection. Polish the case and you will quickly see if there are any external stress/stretch marks on the case. Toss them if you see these marks. Next step is too take the remaining cases and inspect the internal walls for a circular ring. I will bet that just about ALL of the cases will show some sign of this stretch. The key is to know when it is too much. If you toss out any case that shows this inside ring, you will be out of brass very quickly! On the otherhand if you miss one that has gone too far, you will need a broken case extractor! Sorry to say that it is a learning game by trial and error to some degree. But by tossing ALL that show external stress, you will have taken 90% of the really bad cases out of the equation to start with, and removed a lot of grief at the range.

Also, if you start resizing cases and find any that one takes a lot more effort to resize when you get close to the web, just toss them out. Don't try to resize them. The case heads have been balloned too much and you are just asking for a head separation if you do reuse them.

[courteousgavin]

Thanks for all of the great info guys. I was used to seeing the three stake marks for the crimp so this circular crimp looked odd. I just seems strange that the primer and the crimp are not concentric circles. All of them look more like a partial eclipse, if you know what I mean. I don't know how the primer crimping machine works, but wouldn't an off-center crip detonate the primer?

[50 Shooter]

No new brass? Surely you are mistaken, HSM sells new primed Winchester brass and Graf N Son's sells new CBC brass. It's not cheap that's for sure as it's close to $2 each but it's new.

There's also been some TZZ brass that's been demilled floating around from time to time. Runs a little cheaper and it's primed, getting it when it comes up is the problem.

[Hunter]

No new brass? Surely you are mistaken, HSM sells new primed Winchester brass and Graf N Son's sells new CBC brass. It's not cheap that's for sure as it's close to $2 each but it's new.

There's also been some TZZ brass that's been demilled floating around from time to time. Runs a little cheaper and it's primed, getting it when it comes up is the problem.

There is new Winchester brass on the market and some PMC, but it is in small quantities and it is hit and miss. If a guy wanted 500-1000 pcs right now, it would be hard to find. HSM is not currently selling brass to the retail market as Winchester is having issues supplying them for their own ammo sales. But that could change in a month. However, you are correct that if a guy wanted to spend $2 for new brass, I'm sure he could scounge some virgin brass up. Matter of fact I would be the first to offer a case of mine for sale at that price! As for the Izzy stuff, it is good brass once you get it cleaned up. But it came from demilled ammo that was pulled down and it is not "virgin" brass by a long shot. As for CBC, I tend to shy away from that brass. Maybe their quality control has changed from a year ago, but I will let someone else pay the bucks and find that out before I buy anymore if it.

For now, I will keep on using my "virgin" brass for my most acurate loads/shooting and use the mil-surp once fired for all the rest of the shooting. One can buy once-fired brass and toss 60% of it away and it would still be cheaper than buying new brass at $2 a pop.

[grammaton76]

I just spent an average of 60-65 cents a piece to buy 300 pieces of BMG brass on ebay, in preparation for making DTC... I do wish the one guy with the 1k BMG cases would've gotten back to me in time though. Ship in 4 flat-rate boxes, buy it now price of $500 and shipping rate approximately $50. Would've been nice.

[courteousgavin]

I do wish the one guy with the 1k BMG cases would've gotten back to me in time though. Ship in 4 flat-rate boxes, buy it now price of $500 and shipping rate approximately $50. Would've been nice.

Wouldn't 1k of 50 BMG brass take up about 6 or 7 USPS flat rate boxes?

[Hunter]

Wouldn't 1k of 50 BMG brass take up about 6 or 7 USPS flat rate boxes?

5 will do it with room to spare. One can actually get 243-244 in a box, but that is the maximum limit!

[grammaton76]

Wouldn't 1k of 50 BMG brass take up about 6 or 7 USPS flat rate boxes?

Some of the other folks doing auctions have been cramming 240 rounds into a box. There's a lot of 240pc auctions stating it'd arrive in one...

[Hunter]

Some of the other folks doing auctions have been cramming 240 rounds into a box. There's a lot of 240pc auctions stating it'd arrive in one...

Actually if you look at those auctions you will see all of the 240 pcs are from one firm. They were the first (started last year) and the only one so far to ship that way that I know of. And what they say is indeed correct that you get 240+ pcs in a flat rate box. I bought a box from them direct (50brass@gmail.com) last December and it arrived with 242 pcs of very nice (ie no damages, cleaned and polished) brass. They pack it very well. If one factors in the time to clean, polish and the loss rate on processing as received range brass at $.55, their current prices of $.67 for their processed stuff is really good IMO.