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Newbie .223 reloading questions


SlvrDragon50

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My favorite (since 1981 when I got my M700 VS in .223) powder has been IMR4198.  If I want (and I do) consistent powder charges none of the three powder measures I have will do it.  I have to weigh check every charge and use a trickler to get the correct/exact charge weight.  Or use the electronic (Hornady) powder measure/scale unit my wife bought for me.  That is slow.

 

I found a load of BLC2 that works as well as the IMR4198 with the 55 grain FMJBT Hornday bullets I load the most.  It runs through the powder measure pretty well.  I weigh check one out of every 10 powder charges.  One day I loaded 400 rounds and had 5 or 6 out of the 40 I weigh checked that were off by 0.1 to 0.2 grains of weight.

 

I loaded some ammo for my youngest son a few days later.  He insists his rifle shoots better with that same bullet and H335 powder, so that is what I used.  Again, I loaded 400 rounds.  I weigh checked 40 random charges during that session and (absolutely) everyone I checked was dead on the set/desired powder charge.  Every single one.

 

I'm using an RCBS uniflow these days.  I load in batches.  I resize, trim/chamfer/deburr brass and put it in old plastic coffee jugs.  When I get enough and have some nice weather I'll sit on the bench in front of the garage and prime it with a Lee hand primer.  I get a big coffee jug of primed/ready to load brass and sit down to load some ammo.  So don't think I clean/resize/trim/prime/load 400 rounds on a single stage press in an afternoon.

 

Being able to run the tray with 50 cases on it under the downspout of the powder measure and work the lever up/down, up/down, up/down till 50 cases are charged really speeds things up vs. weighing every single charge.  Find a powder that measures consistently and gives you the groups you want and reload some ammo.

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My favorite (since 1981 when I got my M700 VS in .223) powder has been IMR4198.  If I want (and I do) consistent powder charges none of the three powder measures I have will do it.  I have to weigh check every charge and use a trickler to get the correct/exact charge weight.  Or use the electronic (Hornady) powder measure/scale unit my wife bought for me.  That is slow.
 
I found a load of BLC2 that works as well as the IMR4198 with the 55 grain FMJBT Hornday bullets I load the most.  It runs through the powder measure pretty well.  I weigh check one out of every 10 powder charges.  One day I loaded 400 rounds and had 5 or 6 out of the 40 I weigh checked that were off by 0.1 to 0.2 grains of weight.
 
I loaded some ammo for my youngest son a few days later.  He insists his rifle shoots better with that same bullet and H335 powder, so that is what I used.  Again, I loaded 400 rounds.  I weigh checked 40 random charges during that session and (absolutely) everyone I checked was dead on the set/desired powder charge.  Every single one.
 
I'm using an RCBS uniflow these days.  I load in batches.  I resize, trim/chamfer/deburr brass and put it in old plastic coffee jugs.  When I get enough and have some nice weather I'll sit on the bench in front of the garage and prime it with a Lee hand primer.  I get a big coffee jug of primed/ready to load brass and sit down to load some ammo.  So don't think I clean/resize/trim/prime/load 400 rounds on a single stage press in an afternoon.
 
Being able to run the tray with 50 cases on it under the downspout of the powder measure and work the lever up/down, up/down, up/down till 50 cases are charged really speeds things up vs. weighing every single charge.  Find a powder that measures consistently and gives you the groups you want and reload some ammo.

Thanks for all the tips. I haven’t decided what bullet I’m getting yet but I’m leaning heavily towards the Hornady HPBT 55gr or 68gr. I know SMKs are better, but I don’t think I’ll benefit much at the distances I’ll shoot at. Not to mention my Barrel isn’t a premium barrel, just a Ballistic Advantage barrel.

I’ve ordered my dies, and I will probably order the decapping die and trimmer some time so I can start prepping the brass.


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The Hornady 55 grain bullets, even the FMJBT are pretty good.  I have boxes of 52 and 53 grain Sierra's in the attic from over 30 years ago.  I actually got my best accuracy (in the M700) from the flat based 45 grain Speer and Hornady bullets (1 turn in 12").

 

In the .30 caliber rifles (M1A and 03A4) the Sierra's were better than Hornady or Speer bullets.  Again, that was over 30 years ago.  There may be better bullets now than Sierra, I haven't tried any long range stuff in years.  Around here the range is 100 yds. max. and the area I live in is about the same.  Flat land and trees.

 

This is a 100 yd. target.  Rifle was sighted in for POA/POI at 25 yds. and was way high at 100.  I couldn't get the scope to adjust down but I did get it to adjust to the right.  Three shot groups.  AR15, 20" barrel, cheap 3X9 scope that went in the trash after I got home.  Gave the rifle to my oldest son (probably should have kept it and given him one of the others.....).  21.0 grains of IMR4198, Hornady 55 grain FMJGT with CCI primers.

 

First group is off to the left.  Second was off to the right (went to far).  Last group was in the center.  Just could not get the scope to move down.  Even smacked it with a stick a few times, tried going up, then back down.  Nothing worked.  Even the big groups are nice for a "nothing special" rifle bought as a parts kit and built on a lower receiver.

 

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Oh wow, that is awesome, especially that first group. I was thinking about getting the Hornady 55gr FMJ BT just to learn how to reload on and maybe get some SMKs for matches (though not likely). It would bring down the cost of each .223 round quite a bit. Is there any difference in rifle primers like there is for pistol primers?

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It's not a bad idea to buy some different bullet styles/weights to try with your powder (just like you would with a handgun) to see what loads you can come up with that are both reliable and accurate (and safe).

 

The cheapest primers I've seen are the Tula small rifle primers, but they seem to be drying up/going away.  And, in the last year or so we've had 3 dud rounds loaded with Tula primers.  I'm not used to having duds.  I still haven't pulled those down to see if I can figure out what happened to them.

 

I've bought some S&B small rifle primers to try.  People like the small pistol primers and Cabela's will put them on sale every so often for even less than I was paying for Tula.

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4 hours ago, M1A4ME said:

It's not a bad idea to buy some different bullet styles/weights to try with your powder (just like you would with a handgun) to see what loads you can come up with that are both reliable and accurate (and safe).

 

The cheapest primers I've seen are the Tula small rifle primers, but they seem to be drying up/going away.  And, in the last year or so we've had 3 dud rounds loaded with Tula primers.  I'm not used to having duds.  I still haven't pulled those down to see if I can figure out what happened to them.

 

I've bought some S&B small rifle primers to try.  People like the small pistol primers and Cabela's will put them on sale every so often for even less than I was paying for Tula.

Ah, I have an absolute ton of Fiocchi small pistol primers still. Didn't know you could interchange them. I am considering Prvi bullets as well, but I am really hoping to spend <$0.13 per bullet, and the Hornady 55gr gets great reviews everywhere I read.

 

Luckily Powder Valley has a $150 free shipping promo which is getting me to spend more money right now :P 

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7 hours ago, SlvrDragon50 said:

Ah, I have an absolute ton of Fiocchi small pistol primers still. Didn't know you could interchange them. I am considering Prvi bullets as well, but I am really hoping to spend <$0.13 per bullet, and the Hornady 55gr gets great reviews everywhere I read.

 

Luckily Powder Valley has a $150 free shipping promo which is getting me to spend more money right now :P 

Do not use pistol primers in .223 ammo! People may use rifle primers in major 9MM in their pistols, not the other way around.

 

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I didn't mean to say it's okay to use pistol primers in .223 loads.  I meant people say good things about the S&B small pistol primers for pistols, so I had bought a 1,000 S&B small rifle primers to try for .223.

 

I used some small pistol primers in .300 BO one time.  Just once.  The pressure of the loads was supposed to be about the same as the .40 S&W or 9MM +P loads.  Several left the .300 BO carbine with holes blown through the primer.  I didn't try that again.  Either the primer material (thickness/strength) or the firing pin itself, or (possibly) the pressure was higher than the reloading manual suggested.  Even though none were max loads (some low enough I didn't get the carbine to function correctly) some of the primers were perforated.  Never had it happen with small rifle primers, even with loads containing enough powder to make it function correctly.

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On 4/20/2018 at 5:12 AM, M1A4ME said:

It's not a bad idea to buy some different bullet styles/weights to try with your powder (just like you would with a handgun) to see what loads you can come up with that are both reliable and accurate (and safe).

 

The cheapest primers I've seen are the Tula small rifle primers, but they seem to be drying up/going away.  And, in the last year or so we've had 3 dud rounds loaded with Tula primers.  I'm not used to having duds.  I still haven't pulled those down to see if I can figure out what happened to them.

 

I've bought some S&B small rifle primers to try.  People like the small pistol primers and Cabela's will put them on sale every so often for even less than I was paying for Tula.

 

Question about swaging. Should I get something like a reamer: Hornady Case Prep Duo

Or something like this: LNL Primer Pocket Swage Tool

 

If the first one can do a good enough job, I'd be okay with that so I don't have to keep changing out my dies and shell plate.

 

Never mind, watched some videos on auto-eject mods on the LNL kit, went with that. Got it for $75!

 

Edited by SlvrDragon50
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Okay, new question. All my brass is cleaned, and now I'm starting to resize the brass. Do I need to wax absolutely every single piece of brass? Can I assume that after sizing like say 20 pieces of waxed brass that the die should be reasonably lubricated?

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Never assume or else you’ll get a brass stuck in the die. For me, I usually put all the brass I’m about to resize inside a ziplock bag, spray it with lube, zip it up and then shake it all up to lube all the brass. Then I can just pick each brass from the ziplock bag and start resizing.

 

I had been doing that for both my .223/5.56 and .308 ammo.

Edited by George16
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6 minutes ago, George16 said:

Never assume or else you’ll get a brass stuck in the die. For me, I usually put all the brass I’m about to resize inside a ziplock bag, spray it with lube, zip it up and then shake it all up to lube all the brass. Then I can just pick each brass from the ziplock bag and start resizing.

 

I had been doing that for both my .223/5.56 and .308 ammo.

 

Well for me I've been using Hornady case sizing wax which is a pain to apply to every single one. What I've been doing so far is using the hard wax to lubricate the first few then Hornady One Shot on the ones afterwards, seems to be working quite well. That said, I just ordered some liquid lanolin and 99% alcohol to make my own spray lubricant. I've had a few get stubborn even with the one shot (might be the crimped primer), but I definitely see why  you need to lubricate every single case. Just ordered a case feeder plate as well. I would have been okay without the case feeder if I didn't have to process 2000 pieces of brass. 

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12 hours ago, George16 said:

I use Hornady One Shot to spray the brass inside the ziplock bag. Zip it up, toss it a few times to mix and lubricate them up and that’s it.

Ah, I read reports of Hornady One Shot getting stuck cases, maybe I don't spray enough? Some of the cases I was trying to size with HOrnady One Shot I had to wax with the case wax for it to size smoothly. Either way, the lanolin solution I plan on making should come out a lot cheaper than any of the manufactured lubricants I think!

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If you can get H335 it's a very consistent metering powder in my RCBS Unflow powder measure.

 

I meter the charges.  I weigh one of every ten, to make sure nothing is moving out of adjustment.  On a couple of occasions I've loaded 400 rounds in an afternoon.  Once with BLC2 and once with H335.  That means I weighed forty powder charges of each type.

 

With BLC2 I had a few (don't remember the number) that were 0.1 grain off the target weight.  One or two were 0.2 grain off.

 

With H335 every single charge I weighed was dead on the target weight.

 

I prefer BLC2, smaller groups with the 55 grain Hornady FMJBT I load most of the time.

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Got my trimmer in. This thing is WORTH EVERY PENNY. I can't imagine trimming manually then having to chamfer and deburr every piece of brass afterwards. The only thing that does bother me is that sometimes a piece of brass gets stuck, and I have to clamp the casing while trimming (rare though). I am pretty sure this would be mitigated by wearing gloves. I love how it catches the brass shavings too. Still have a ton of brass to process, and trimming is much slower than resizing and depriming. I bought a case dryer (Glorified food dehydrator) to help deal with the volume.
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Edited by SlvrDragon50
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I use H335 (25.5 grs) @ (2.251 OAL) with 55gr Hornady soft points and it is a very accurate load.  The cannelure is .084 ahead of the case mouth but the bullet base is even with the neck/shoulder juncture.  The round just fits in the magazines but have never had a feeding problem.  I really like H335 , you might or might not like it, but you should certainly try it.

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I plan on going to the range on Tuesday to shoot USPSA, I'll check out their primers and powders and pick a 1lb jug! I'm pretty sure I saw H335, I definitely saw CFE223. I went with the Hornady FMJ-BTs, but I also got 400 of Prvi's BTs. I also got my Hornady swage tool so I'm ready to load 223 now.

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Got a question with trimming. I know that the trimming consistency depends upon the resizing, but I'm wondering if it's better to lean on the shorter or longer side of 1.750"? For the most part, I can get them down to 1.750", and some pieces of brass are so short (1.74") that the trimmer doesn't even touch the brass. How long is too long? Unfortunately my fingers get tired using the trimmer after maybe a hundred or so pieces of brass. Basically, I'm considering setting the trimmer on the shorter end of 1.750" rather than the longer end.

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Buy an RCBS number 10 case trimmer shell holder. Screw that on a piece of wood, insert your .223 shell holder and place the brass into the shell holder. Then trim the brass using your WFT downwards (like driving in a screw) without holding the brass so tight that it’s hurting your hands. The downward force you’re applying on the drill/trimmer will keep the brass from rotating.

 

this is what I had been using to trim hundreds of .223/5.56 and .308 cases for my reloading needs without hurting my hands.

 

or you can buy this extended shell  holder that you can clamp on your vise and trim the same way as I describe above.

 

Extended .223 shell holder

Edited by George16
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I never had a problem with that method for the past three years I had been using my WFT in trimming my rifle brass. I have trimmed thousands of cases this way without any problems. You can even chuck it on a drill press like I had done without any problems either. 

 

By the way, the amount of shavings is not substantial to block the insertion of the trimmer. Besides, the shavings will just be ejected through the big holes on the side due to centrifugal force acting on them when the trimmer is rotating.

 

My .02.

Edited by George16
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