Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 55 grain FMJ OAL issue

Loading LC 5.56 brass with 26 grains of 748 topped with 55 grain FMJ factory seconds from MidwayUSA (assume they are Hornady but I'm not certain) that I just ordered.
Using RCBS .223 dies on a RCBS Rock Chucker press. Shooting out of 16" AR15.

Trimmed brass to 1.750". Set seating die to seat bullet to 2.248" (half of cannelure visible). Loaded my first 50 rounds.
Noticed on about 10 out of 50 of the rounds that the entire cannelure was above the case mouth. Measured those rounds with calipers and they were 2.265" (would not fit into PMAG).
In order to get those 10 rounds down to 2.248" OAL, I had to bump the seating die down a little bit. I ran one of the good 40 rounds through the newly adjusted seating die just to see what happened and it brought the OAL down to around 2.23" (cannelure fully inside case mouth).

There's obviously a variance in the bullets. The ones that are giving me trouble seem to be fatter (less taper) but it may just be an illusion. I only have a calipers. I don't have a micrometer or any other measuring tools. I've loaded thousands of .223 rounds and never had this issue. Bought 1,000 of these bullets from Midway with the intention of bulk loading them. I don't want to have to analyze every round after loading to check OALs. So before I contact Midway for a return, what exactly seems to be going on here? Different length bullets? Ogive? Cannelure position? Picture attached. Not my picture but shows what's going on. Thanks

That's what's going on most likely...

I've noticed that Midway has a very different definition of "Factory Seconds" than Nosler does.

I think Midway often more accurately sells "Factory Rejects" in this category, and they are not that great a discount, considering they likely buy them by the ton. So these bullets are a crap shoot at best.

But anyway, these bullets represent the cumulative out-of-spec mistakes collected over months of production that end up in the trash bin; produced when the tooling was out of spec.

Midway isn't allowed to mention who made them to protect the manufacturer's reputation...they may not even all be from the same manufacturer...who knows...?

Other than all that they don't look too bad...:)

Looking at your pic, OAL seems close, but the bullet shapes are vastly different in the ogive. I recall that Hornady produces both Secant and Tangent ogives, and possibly another one.

The cannelures may not be consistent. That's not all that critical, but the ogive seems to be inconsistent as well, and that is, since it affects OAL.

You could compensate somewhat using a seater that uses the tip of the bullet rather than the ogive, and they could shoot fine...not exactly match grade, but OK for what you want to do with them.

Or...you can try sorting them. or send them back...

These aren't target bullets, more for drills and plinking. I would set the seating die to allow the longest bullets to fit the magazine and load them all at that setting. As stated above, cannelure isn't critical. Rack it up to lesson learned and buy the Hornady firsts next time; they're not that expensive bought in bulk.

Thanks for the replies. I've bought seconds in the past and they only had some cosmetic issues (tarnish, etc). This is the first time I've seen variance in dimensions. Completely understood that these bullets are for blasting. I shoot 69 grain SMKs out of my Savage and dont expect that quality or accuracy from these.

I think I'll keep it so that the "odd" bullets get seated to mag length and the normal bullets will be seated just a bit deeper. I'm sort of Type A when it comes to my reloading and it bothers me when I know my loads aren't perfect but I'll get over it.

You should listen to what NVhunter suggested on how to set the seating die. That's what most seasoned hand loaders would do. If you are really that "Type A", you wouldn't have bought those pos in the first place. Load them shoot them up in your AR and don't buy them again. Lesson learned... That or sort them first and then load all the similar ones, throw out all the really "odd" ones.. Also, if you are loading up FMJ bullets and hoping for match grade accuracy, you are living in a fantasy world.. Sounds like your expectations are a little high for a factory reject bullet.. Just sayin

I dont expect match grade accuracy. Never said that. I've loaded over 3000 of 55 grain factory seconds from midway and the only issue has been cosmetic. Midway is going to take them back. Thanks for your insight