I was recently given a huge bag of a couple hundred rounds of .223 ammo and I'm curious as to what types of ammo there are.  There are 5 different stamps on the casings of the ammo and they are as follows:

L C 7 5

L C 8 3

W C C 94

WCC 93 (with the NATO Circle-Cross symbol on these)

R A 7 0

The RA 70, WCC 94, and WCC 93 have some sort of red sealant around the primers, the Lake City stuff doesn't.  

I'm wondering if anyone can give me information as to what this stuff is (XM193, SS109, or whatever).  I'm assuming the numbers indicate years it was made or lot numbers but I'm pretty new to this (yes, I read through the ammo-oracle.com information).  


Thanks in advance.

All of the LC marked ammo is Lake City M193 and the number is the year in which it was produced. Everything marked with WCC is Winchester M193 (unless the bullet tips are painted green which would indicate M855) and is good stuff. I have several boxes of the WCC 93 stuff left over. I am not sure what the RA marked rounds are, but it sounds like some type of M193 as well and was produced in 1970.

Also, all of the rounds have sealed primers. I have some WCC 93 sealed with the red stuff and I also have some W.C.C. 01 production (IMI contract M193 to Winchester) that is sealed with a purple colored sealant. I think Lake City uses a darker colored sealant as well.

RA is Remington, the number is the same as with the Winchester, its the year of Mfr.

XM193 is Federal. It's probably lake City current production.

SS109 is technically a bullet type and not a manufacturer at all but some manufacturers (foreign all) call their cartridge SS109 when it uses the SS109 steel core bullet. Santa Barbara (Spanish I believe) comes to mind but they are not the only ones.

I agree with the previous posts on the others.

PigPen

It's interesting how you come to have such a variety of head stamped cases and don't know anything about them.

No flame intended, it's just that when some one has one or two head stamped cases, you are not surprised that they haven't looked at this but by the time they have some of just about all of them you tend to figgure they have examined them. You must have inherited a box full of assorted amminution......and yet, XM193 is recent current production (probably from 2001) regardless of the headstamp date but that's another story.

Quoted: <snip>No flame intended, it's just that when some one has one or two head stamped cases, you are not surprised that they haven't looked at this but by the time they have some of just about all of them you tend to figgure they have examined them. You must have inherited a box full of assorted amminution......and yet, XM193 is recent current production (probably from 2001) regardless of the headstamp date but that's another story.

Uh...yeah...like I said in my first post:

I was recently given a huge bag of a couple hundred rounds of .223 ammo and I'm curious as to what types of ammo there are.

Quoted: XM193 is Federal. It's probably lake City current production. Yeah, so what? XM193 IS Federal ammo, but he doesn't have XM193, he has LC dated '75 and '83 which isn't XM193, its just M193. XM193 is recent, from '99 to the present. Not all Surplus LC ammo is XM193. No flame intended, it's just that when some one has one or two head stamped cases, you are not surprised that they haven't looked at this but by the time they have some of just about all of them you tend to figgure they have examined them. You must have inherited a box full of assorted amminution......and yet, XM193 is recent current production (probably from 2001) regardless of the headstamp date but that's another story. Once again, what is the point of this? He has mixed ammo ranging from 10-30 years old and you can't comprehend how he doesn't know anything about them?!?!

You sure this isn't reloads?  The cases mean nothing when the stuff is loose in a bag.  That's the best case.  Floor sweepings is another possibility.

-- Chuck