I've owned a 223 Contender for a long time and have 100 or so cases. It was mostly a goofing around gun, nothing serious. I'm about to own a Kimber 223 and decided maybe I should do some large reloading - say load 500 at a time.
I know a difference exists between 5.56 and 223, namely small internal volume differences and the chamber set up between the 2.
Looking at the bewildering array of once fired brass options on GB, a couple of questions:
1. I see Federal brass - is this the same as the 'normal' Fed brass? Not a fan of Fed brass for other cartridges, but as cheap as they are, if I could get 3-4-5 loadings, I could buy another batch.
Fed brass works ok. I dont keep my brass much past 3 to 5 loadings anyways regardless of manufacturer. I tend to lose them or necks become loose so if I get 3 to 5 firings im ok with that.
Lake city tends to be thicker brass, so max loads can be an issue from my understanding.
I would decide what bullet and use you want to load and go from there. I run fast twist barrels, typically 1/8 or 1/7. I like 69 sierra game kings and hornady 75 bthp.
I run varget for my heavies, but plenty of good powders for the 223.
If your chamber is 223 rem, do not fire 5.56 pressure loads in it!
I have Remington brass for all of my cartridges, but only because it was plentiful a dozen years ago when I started reloading. I’m on the fourth loading for much of it, but I neck size only. That really extends the life of the brass.
Do some research on Lee collet neck sizing dies. Start here.
Some military rounds have thicker brass and less case capacity. That is not true of LC 5.56 brass. It has a bit more capacity than most commercial brass.
Our local range is shared with law enforcement. A visit to the range after they have been using it often produces a bounty of once fired LC brass. I have so much of it that I will never use it all.
De-crimped, cleaned, formed and trimmed, it makes great reloading brass.
Competed at the state and national level for 14 years, mostly with 5.56/223 in NRA over the course competition at 200-300-600 yards.
Shot out many barrels that would still work great at 200-300 yards but quit on the long line. Usual accurate barrel life was about 3500-5000 rounds. Used Kriegers, Blackstars, Shilen, Douglas, and Lilja... Some were good, some were great.
Federal GMM brass was worth maybe 2-3 firings and the primer pockets would expand... good for practice and a toss.
LC brass was used over the course and rarely did I have a case separation. I would fire LC until it was lost, sometimes 10 plus reloadings..
Winchester was used a lot and was the same as LC... I used both for the mid range target at 600 yards..
Use a case gauge and set the shoulder back .003... never had a problem chambering a round and like I mentioned earlier, rarely had a case separation.
Mostly used CCI primers as they were supposedly harder than federal primers
VV N140 was my go to powder as was VV N540. Had lots of good matches with 4895, Varget and RL 15, but they had slower speeds than VV powders when an accurate load was found.
Rare was the barrel that preferred any ball powder.
Bullets used were 69,77 and 80 gr sierras with the occasional barrel that liked Bergers of the same weight.
Good luck!
When people face the possibility of freezing or starving there is little chance they are going to listen to unfounded claims of climate doomsday from a bunch of ultra-rich yacht sailing private jet-setting carbon-spewing hypocrite elites
I have LC brass that I really lost count on the loads, never had any trouble w/that.. the pockets get loose after 15 or so loads, still, none have fallen out, and no black doughnuts around them.... your mileage may vary,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
There's never enough time to do it right ,but there's always enough time to do, it over....
Lake City brass is good and seems to last a long time, and as previously said Federal brass seems to develop loose primer pockets pretty quickly.
I don't know when Starline will be offering .223 Rem brass again, but I can say it's good stuff.
Back to LC brass...if you buy fired LC stuff it will require dealing with the primer crimp. There are several ways to fix the issue but all are a PITA in my opinion. I was able to find virgin LC 5.56 brass once upon a time. I think it was at Graf & Sons, but that may not be correct. But if you can find unprimed LC, it's good to go.
If you want your brass to last a long time, annealing the necks might serve you well. As long as primer pockets remain tight you should be able to continue using the same brass indefinitely. Keeping pressures sane helps too.
The way things are today, you might be well advised to just take what you can get. Hopefully all this supply chain BS will go away (I'm nt holding my breath, though).
Don't be the darkness.
America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.
One thing to watch out for in fired LC: If it was fired in a machine gun, to case will have been compressed .014", shoulder to base. Such brass should be discarded, since it will tend toward case head separation.
One thing to watch out for in fired LC: If it was fired in a machine gun, to case will have been compressed .014", shoulder to base. Such brass should be discarded, since it will tend toward case head separation.
Is there some way to detect that visually or does it require a tedious measurement?
Don't be the darkness.
America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.
LC Brass can be had new _AND_ without the primer crimps; you just have to keep an eye open for it. It's good brass. I've found best accuracy with Benchmark powder followed by XBR 8208. 8208 is the cleanest burning powder I've found. If target shooting, Matchkings seem to shoot best. For varmints/p-dogs, I really like VMAX bullets.
Is there some way to detect that visually or does it require a tedious measurement?
In my case, I know what the LEOs were shooting, standard semi auto rifles, so it wasn't a problem. If you don't know the source of the brass, then you can make yourself a little fixture with washer that rests somewhere on the lower part of the shoulder.... or something. Never had to deal with the problem.
As a couple of posters have pointed out, you can buy virgin LC brass sometimes. I have a box of 1000 sitting in my workshop, and can't get to it because I have so much free brass from the range.
I use LC, Remington, Winchester, Hornady, Federal, Frontier, and even some Speer brass in the 223. I prefer the first 3 on the list, and use mostly those. But I wouldn't be afraid of any of it as long as I inspected it, and didn't use hot loads.
As for as powders for the 223, there are simply too many to list that will get the job done. I use a lot of H335, W748, Varget, and surplus WC846, along with Tac and Benchmark.
One of the best loads I have with 55gr nosler ballistic tips uses leverevolution. I have to go dig up the data, rest of my loads are with 75gr and up and I use either AR-comp or 2495. But you can’t go wrong with RL15 with heavies
Originally Posted by Bricktop
Then STFU. The rest of your statement is superflous bullshit with no real bearing on this discussion other than to massage your own ego.
