Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles What die for uniforming necks of pre-primed and sized 223 brass?

During the great brass scare of '09 I traded into two bags of 1,000 pieces of 223 brass, primed with CCI small rifle primers. This brass is ready to load, and looks like re-primed once fired commercial brass.

Since I don't currently own an AR-15, my 223 shooting has shifted to mid-range work with my Remington 700. I'm getting good accuracy out of this brass with 24.5gr of Ramshot TAC and a 60gr Hornady V-Max, but would like to find out just how good the rifle can shoot.

What dies would work best for controlling bullet run-out and uniforming the necks of this brass? My rifle has a factory barrel, so I doubt I will have to turn necks, but I do want my reloads to be as concentric as possible.

I am already seating bullets with a Redding Competition (micrometer) seater die, which works great.

I'd use a Redding Comp neck die with either a .244 or .245 inch bushing. Or you could get one of the S type full length or neck sizer dies and remove the decapping pin.

After the brass is fired, you might want to measure it and resize no more than .005 inch at a stroke. That means you would first size with a .250 inch bushing, then go to a .245 inch.

It all depends on how much you think it will contribute to concentricity and if you are getting the results you want.

Thanks, right now my best groups are averaging .780" (with a few down near .5") so there is room for improvement. Most of that will come from my getting to know the rifle better, but I want to be sure I'm doing what I can at the loading bench as well.

Measure the OD of the neck of a loaded round, a bushing 1-2 thousants less is all you need to hold the bullet. The first thing to do is to find out where the run out is being produced. If the case neck thickness is bad, it can be difficult to fix without neck turning. Measure the concentricity of the neck after firing, after sizing and then the bullet after seating. If you are using an expander ball, it needs to be polished and check it's size. Too much difference between the ID of the neck and the OD of the expander ball can be a problem. Sometimes a small die correction in the press can make a difference. The short of this is to find where the problem is occuring and fix it. You could get a Tru-Angle and correct the run-out after they are loaded.Rick.

Pull the decapping pin or raise the rod so the pin won't contact the primers and use any die you wish.

Lee Collett Sizer with the de-prime pin pulled. I once had to pull 1,000+ defective bullets from .223 rounds. (long, sad story) The cases had to be re-sized to hold the replacement bullets, and the Lee die was my choice to do that. It did a great job.

Depends on what the brass is and how it was prepped. Maybe you don't need to do anything.

New brass necks often are dented and just squeezing it down isn't enough......you need to use a standard necksizer with an expander ball that'll bring it back up to round.

If yours is once-fired, I don't know how they deprime and/or size that stuff commercially. If it's with a regular sizing die then the necks should be fine as-is. If they use some sort of depriming die that doesn't touch the neck, then you'd want to use a necksizer with decapping pin removed. Look at the necks and see if they're dented or not. If they look nice and round, fine. Do a neck measurement, then seat a bullet and measure again.....if there's .002 or .003" difference between them, just put a good inside chamfer on the caseneck and load them.

You Tube has a video on using the Lee collet sizer. There is also one demonstrating the run out when using the Lee and also the Hornady. The Lee won hands down with up to .001 while the Hornady was up to .006.

Search for collet sizers on You Tube and you should be able to find it.

Rocky...

that is exactly my choice for the same job...

I use a universal deprimer, so I have pulled the decapping pens on most of my neck sizing dies.... have mostly Lee Collet Neck dies as they do such a good job..