Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles AI and Once Fired Brass

I've been running the idea of a 223AI around in my head for some time now.

I have 350 "once-fired" Winchester Brass. Is there any problem in using this brass to fire-form into AI without annealing them first?

Conventional wisdom says not to.
I have had no issues getting finely formed brass from once fired the times I have done so.
I fire form at parent case +P velocities so my forming loads are running at good pressure.
YMMV.

FL size 'em and load 'em to 223 max and shoot....

Load bullet to lands tight to FF to AI..

Mine gets 3500 fps w/Nosler 55s & Benchmark.....

These guys are right, load 'em up and rock on...


Ingwe

I've seen it go the other way also, but you already have the brass on hand so it's easy enough to run it and see.

Getting a .243AI chambered right now. Have 100 twice fired cases at home that I was going to fireform. Probably should anneal them but think I will run some through as they are just to see what happens. If the first few all split then I'll stop and anneal the rest. If not, well, then we've learned something.

I've done it lots. The only problem I ran into is when the original 223 rifle had a larger chamber than the nice tight 223AI custom chamber. Not up front but back near the base.

Don't be surprised if you have to stand on the bolt handle to get it to close with the loaded rounds. If they do chamber the first time in the AI you are good to go.

Yep, that is the typical issue

A friend had a Cooper 223 AI he fired lots of once fired brass in his to FF never had a problem and I can't remember him losing a case. He set his bullets out to the lans.

This is interesting.

Would this be a problem if you FL size the once fired brass in a standard 223 die before you fire formed in the AI.

It can be. Even small base FL dies don't do much to the case down near the base, which is where the problem can occur. I have the Redding small base FL body die, makes no difference.

It's in my mind two things. First, custom chambers tend to run on the small side of SAAMI. Second, a lot of factory chambers run on the large side. Manufacturers get more chambers out of a reamer that way. Result? Tight brass at the base.

It gets much worse if you buy bulk once-fired brass that was fired by institutions and such in semis and full autos.

For the guys that have never had an issue with this, all it means is that the reamer your smith used was a bit larger.

I always use virgin in all my AI's to begin but I'm funny that way.

I do now. But funny how it wasn't that long ago that it was cool to say that a guy bought bulk once-fired 223 brass from brassmanbrass.com or ?? for a few bucks per thousand. That was why a bunch of guys (guy) we know talked up the overwhelming advantage of the 223 over the 222Mag and others, the "damned near free brass".

I run Lapua in my 223AI. Having 3 or 4 hundred seems like enough.

I still run military stuff in factory chambered 223's and I do have friends that run it in the AI, but I don't.

I run once fired through mine no problems at all Full length size load to the lands and my fav. std. load, Usually fire form on a prarie dog hunt they are very accurate.