Lake City (LC headstamp) .223 brass question

[218bee]

I sorted thru a half bucket of .223 brass I picked up at the local range. The most abundant by far was a bunch of Lake City with various dated headstamps.
So I ended up with about 100 LC 20 (Lake City 2020) that looked decent enough to use.
I looked at several reloading manuals and found .223 max case OAL 1.76 with trim to 1.75. I thought it odd that the max and trim to were only 0.01 apart.
So I deprimed them and was going to put in tumbler but thought I'd first trim them all to 1.75 since brass was unknown to me.
What I found was that probably close to half the cases measured OAL 1.73-1.74. I expected them to be OVER the 1.75.
Maybe milsurp loads them shorter for better feeding in a AR?
I just found that odd. Excuse the rambling of an old addled man.

[Iowa Fox]

I like to pickup brass at the range just to inspect and look at it. The quality of all brass has gone down down down over the last 30 years..

[KMW1954]

Case length is 1.760" with a trim to 1.750" = .010".. The lengths you are posting are normal with the extremes I've seen being around the 1.766". I normally trim to 1.755" for my bolt rifle. Even at that I do not have to trim after every firing.

[Whynot]

I like to pickup brass at the range just to inspect and look at it. The quality of all brass has gone down down down over the last 30 years..

Not all brass- the good stuff is still out there- and as good or better as ever. But you pay for it.

The only potential issue from shooting shorter necked brass (that headspaces off shoulder) is that it can build up deposits in the chamber- and then when you shoot a max length it can have trouble chambering or crimp the bullet.

The only time that I don't pick up my brass is when it's on its last leg.... so be careful with what you find. It could have been fired once or on its 12th loading.

[jpx2rk]

I've picked up lots of 1x LC brass at my range, and it's a mix of lengths, 1.74 not uncommon. Just prep it in your normal manner, load and shoot it. It's just like any other brass that takes 2-3 firings for it to achieve your chamber size.

[charlie b]

I never got more than 4 or 5 loadings out of common .223 or 5.56 brass, including LC. The primer pockets would expand and drop primers. Ended up using Lapua brass. Those had over 25 reloads on them before I removed that barrel.

[243winxb]

Full length size first, then trim.