I'm an experienced handloader, mostly rifle and handgun and a little bit of shotgun, but I'm new to handloading for an AR and found out there are many different dies sets out there.
Should I get small base? Will these dies over work the brass? I want the brass to live a long life. What about just standard full length dies? I use mostly RCBS stuff and I see they have AR-specific dies that feature a taper crimp instead of a roll crimp.
Which dies should I get? I just bought a new Ruger AR-556.
Thanks in advance.
Excellent question. One of my friends and I have actually been wondering the same thing. We asked another friend last weekend, who has loaded for ar's since the 70's and he said he has used the "regular ol full length set, no small base dies and no special crimp". My friend and I were both still a little sketchy though, even though he's never had problems.. I'm curious to see what the consensus is here as well... Of course Rost will have his own ideas, but I'm also sure he'll have his reasons...
I'm pretty much with the crowd as noted. That after my guess to reloading AR ammo was that I've probably cranked just under half a million rounds out. Somewhere in the 400,000 round count.
RE taper crimp, thats for ammo meant for rounds that headspace in the chamber on the case mouth, not the datum line on the shoulder... So there is no reason to use it vs roll, but no reason not to either.
There are a few out there, that swear the lee factory crimp makes more accurarte ammo. I could go with that, IF each case is trimmed exactly the same each firing. But even with variable case length, a bushing sizing, will still net .5 moa accuracy for 10 shot groups at 300 yards most of the time. Which is good enough fro what I used to need.
Bottom line, about any die, no need for small base, load and go. If not filling the case fully, IE 90-100 percent powder density, you might consider crimping... From what I hear.