Anyone finding the LC50 bandoliers for sale these days? 120 rounds for about 60 bucks a few years ago. I have some. Should I save it because it will never be available again. It is pretty good ammo, at least in my carbines.
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Anyone finding the LC50 bandoliers for sale these days? 120 rounds for about 60 bucks a few years ago. I have some. Should I save it because it will never be available again. It is pretty good ammo, at least in my carbines.
I'd save it....
On the LC50, was there just the one "charger" included rather than having the charger integral with the each stripper clip? I guess I never knew when they switched from the "early style" to the "late." Probably have it in one of my books somewhere. - Bob
As far as I know they didn't switch. It always had the clip guide attached. It was the ,223 that changed to separate mag charger and clips. Never heard of the clips and charger being separate for M1/2.
At least some Vietnam era bandoliers had the guide separate from the stripper clips. It was fastened to the cloth with a safety pin. I need to go hit the books to see if I can find a date when this change was made. - Bob
That'll be interesting to see.
I've got one "old style" bandolier LC 13328 which is from the Korean War era. The "new style" that I have is marked LC-50-276 Jul '72. WarBaby III doesn't give a specific date for the change - just that WWII and Korea are the early type, and the new type is circa Vietnam. The terms they use for the parts are: strippers, and charger/loaders - "guide" sounds better to me. :cheers: - Bob
The LC-50 with the charger is Korean war time frame. In the early 1960's they developed the system that became standard with the 5.56. The single adapter and the 10 rounds on a stripper. While the first ones were WW2 developed they were really never used before the war ended.
One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that the carboards are different on the later ones - more of a sleeve type arrangement, rather than the earlier separator. - Bob
It does make sense though to change to the type used on M14 and M16...always thought it was a bit of a waste of metal to do it the way they did.
Keep it? Shoot it? Sell it? If it was me since you have more than 1 carbine the answer would be keep it and shoot then reload it and shoot it again. As many times as the brass holds out.
I will hang on to the LC bandolier ammo. Pass it on with the carbines when I am done. Got two buckets of brass, LC and everything else. Bought the dies and components to load 'em. Pretty excited about taking my first steps of loading for the war babies. Just wish I had bought more of the bandolier ammo a few years ago, before it disappeared from the retail market. Who would have thought there would be no more.
If your going to reload cases then be sure to measure the sized cases before you load them. Carbine brass stretches a lot with each firing and sizing. Do not load any case that is longer then 1.290 inches in length. If that long or longer then trim the cases back to 1.285 but no less then 1.280. If you do load cases over the 1.290 mark then you run the risk of the bolt not closing all the way but enough to allow the hammer to hit the firing pin with will cause and out of battery discharge. This could very well damage the carbine or the bolt plus the shooter.
Thanks for the advice on case length. Duly noted and WILCO. Still setting up a new reloading section in my shop, but 30 carbine dies will be the first to go in the brand new RockChucker sometime this summer. Lots of once fired brass waiting for processing. HooRah.