.223 - 5.56

MarshallDodge · Sep 15, 2024

Looking at your groups, the dies you are using are not holding you back. If you were seeing the occasional flyer, I would adjust neck tension, but make sure it is the ammo and not the gun, shooter, or wind.

Wind can be a factor at any distance, but even more so when you go past 100 yards. Learning to read wind can really help you.

I do not crimp bolt gun ammo.

dcmdon · Sep 15, 2024

That's what I was thinking. I'm a mediocre shot when shooting from the type of positions used in PRS. I think this quick and dirty session shows that under most circumstances this gun/ammo combination is going to be more accurate than I am.

I'm looking forward to bumping up the powder and setting COAL correctly and seeing what it will do.

I live in MA and the longest I can shoot is 300 yards. Over Columbus Day weekend I'll be up at my place in NH where I have 35 acres and can shoot 800 yards. I'm hoping to have a semi-final load made and entered into my Kestrel.

Snuby642 · Sep 15, 2024

dcmdon said:
I'll gather up some same year Lake City brass, size it, trim it, uniform the flash hole and measure each charge for next week and see how it goes.

dcmdon said:
In the past I've spun down the expander ball by a couple of thousandths to provide for more neck tension (that is how my Dillon sizing die is set up).

Your Dillon will hold 0.1g well and I only get a + 0.1g load on the first pull of the day. So if whatever your measuring with is ×/- 0.1g check your dillon and just run it.

I also polish my expander ball to - 0.004 thousands .

But then everything goes through a -0.002 mandrel .

Exact ammount of nt is consistancy and the mandrell does that best.

oldrifleman · Sep 15, 2024

First off, no problem, we are all learning, especially me. Le Wilson, whidden, SAC are the A class died that I know of ( I am sure there are others).

dcmdon · Sep 15, 2024

Snuby642 said:
Your Dillon will hold 0.1g well and I only get a + 0.1g load on the first pull of the day. So if whatever your measuring with is ×/- 0.1g check your dillon and just run it.

I also polish my expander ball to - 0.004 thousands .

But then everything goes through a -0.002 mandrel .

Exact ammount of nt is consistancy and the mandrell does that best.

I've just started researching precision sizing dies.

I noticed that all of them allow you to swap out different sized bushings.

I have been reading this evening and now know that I need to figure how mandrels and bushings interact and how to figure sizes of each. In short, I now know what I DON'T know. Which is a good first step. Ha.

I've always just used the expander ball to set neck tension. It got me to a 3 fps SD with my .308 loads. But apparently there is a better way. Like I said, I'm not even at the point where I'm sorting brass for head stamp yet with my .223 loads so I think I'm just going to run the standard Dillon FL resizing die with an undersized expander ball for the time being.

Thank you all again for all this knowledge.

dcmdon · Sep 15, 2024

Snuby642 said:
I also polish my expander ball to - 0.004 thousands .

But then everything goes through a -0.002 mandrel .

Exact ammount of nt is consistancy and the mandrell does that best.

So you use the ball to expand the case mouth a bit.

Then do the final expansion to size with the mandrel.

No bushings involved? I like the idea of basing the sizing on the ID of the case mouth, not the OD. So this makes sense to me.

Mauser48 · Sep 15, 2024

I use a redding type s set. If I had to do it again I'd consider a wilson bushing die and a forster micrometer seater. I use a bushing to size about .002 under desired neck tension then use a .222 mandrel. I'd also recommend starline brass.

Snuby642 · Sep 15, 2024

That's the beauty of the sizing button mod and a mandrell.

No bushings to change or measurements to take, no worries about changing or mixing brass.

As long as you have a no turn chamber all you need to adjust is powder and seating depth.

All my ammo gets a small crimp aproxamatly 1/8 turn from just touching. It's all semiautomatic 223 fodder.

Mauser48 · Sep 15, 2024

I will say even if you decide you don't want to mandrel every time it's a great tool to have for new brass which is often dented and undersized or if you drop a piece of brass at some point in the loading process and don't want to run it through the full length die again.

Cr1775 · Sep 16, 2024

dcmdon said:
Does anyone have recommendations for match dies?

I've used both Redding and Hornady micrometer seating dies and don't really have an opinion on them.

By the way. I'm not crimping. Just using neck tension.

In the past I've spun down the expander ball by a couple of thousandths to provide for more neck tension (that is how my Dillon sizing die is set up).

Is this a good thing to continue, or should I crimp? Ammo will be used in a bolt gun only.

??? If you spun? Down the expander ball you decreased your neck tension. As for seating bullets you might want to try a Wilson seating die with an arbor press for better results. Anyway have fun!

Cr1775 · Sep 16, 2024

As far as crimping bullets i have never seen an improvement in rifle groups. Only time i crimp is when loading for pistol. But go ahead see what you see. That goes for loading semi auto rifles never seen an improvement.

wind gypsy · Sep 16, 2024

dcmdon said:
Thank you.

I was given 800 of these bullets by someone who bought them to use in his AR and then found that they didn't really like to be loaded to AR magazine length.

Based on today's results, I'm going to make some common sense changes to try to wring out some more accuracy. Obviously, this was a starting powder charge. Today's rounds
1. Were too short.
2. Were mixed brass
3. Were loaded on a Dillon 550 using the Dillon powder drop
4) Were loaded with Dillon dies

I'll gather up some same year Lake City brass, size it, trim it, uniform the flash hole and measure each charge for next week and see how it goes.

Ain’t nothin wrong with jumping em 62 thou. I usually start around 50 thou and if it shoots good I don’t bother trying anything else sometimes.

dcmdon · Sep 16, 2024

Cr1775 said:
??? If you spun? Down the expander ball you decreased your neck tension. As for seating bullets you might want to try a Wilson seating die with an arbor press for better results. Anyway have fun!

Spinning down the expander ball decreases its diameter. So it expands the case mouth less. Which results in a smaller diameter case mouth, which means more neck tension when you stuff similarly sized bullets into it.

Cr1775 · Sep 16, 2024

dcmdon said:
Spinning down the expander ball decreases its diameter. So it expands the case mouth less. Which results in a smaller diameter case mouth, which means more neck tension when you stuff similarly sized bullets into

Still trying to figure out how to spin them down evenly. Guess i don't have a big enough shop for that . Much easier to call Forster and order the size i want.

wind gypsy · Sep 16, 2024

In regards to all this bushing and expander talk - I played the bushing and mandrel game for a bit and the last handful of cartridges I've
moved to just getting forster FL sizing dies honed to not overwork the necks and use the expander balls. Maybe benchrest guys can tell the difference but I cant and it's one less pass through a single stage press this way and dies are economical. Less of a deal if each is a stage on a progressive press but i'm not wasting time on it with a single stage.

Cr1775 said:
Still trying to figure out how to spin them down evenly. Guess i don't have a big enough shop for that . Much easier to call Forster and order the size i want.

Does forster still do that?

Cr1775 · Sep 16, 2024

wind gypsy said:
In regards to all this bushing and expander talk - I played the bushing and mandrel game for a bit and the last handful of cartridges I've
moved to just getting forster FL sizing dies honed to not overwork the necks and use the expander balls. Maybe benchrest guys can tell the difference but I cant and it's one less pass through a single stage press this way and dies are economical. Less of a deal if each is a stage on a progressive press but i'm not wasting time on it with a single stage.

Does forster still do that?

They did for me 2 years ago. My cast 308 bullets are sized .310, i needed a ball that was .308.
Forster always been good to me.

dcmdon · Sep 16, 2024

Cr1775 said:
Still trying to figure out how to spin them down evenly. Guess i don't have a big enough shop for that . Much easier to call Forster and order the size i want.

Let me know if this is a bad way to do it.

But I just measured the expander ball, chucked it in a drill press and used some crocus cloth to take .002 off of it, then finished it with some finer wet sand paper.

Snuby642 · Sep 17, 2024

^^^^^^^^ That's the way I do all mine.

Put the stem in a drill and polish away a couple thousands.

-4 thou on the expander works the brass less at a time and the -2 mandrell die setup reduced fliers and shrank groups.

Now when I change powder by 0.1g I can see the difference on paper.

Not really a bench rest shooter but load development is done on a bench with sand bags. Cuts down on variables.

dcmdon · Sep 17, 2024

Snuby642 said:
^^^^^^^^ That's the way I do all mine.

Put the stem in a drill and polish away a couple thousands.

-4 thou on the expander works the brass less at a time and the -2 mandrell die setup reduced fliers and shrank groups.

Now when I change powder by 0.1g I can see the difference on paper.

Not really a bench rest shooter but load development is done on a bench with sand bags. Cuts down on variables.

So you don't use bushings? Just size it down with the die? Expand it a bit with the ball and then expand it to final size with a mandrel?

Thanks in advance.

Snuby642 · Sep 18, 2024

Yes that's exactly what I do.
I hate fooling with bushings.

Edit: All the slop between brass goes to the outside.

dcmdon · Sep 18, 2024

Thank you.

dcmdon · Sep 23, 2024

I've been sorting brass by head stamp. I've always had good luck with Lake City brass with the same head stamp.

I fulll length resize, trim to length, then weigh them. Since the resizing and trimming defines the outside dimensions, the variance in weight is caused by difference in wall thickness and by extension, volume.

However, I've noticed a strange variance among brass with the same head stamp.

One primer is crimped in using a totally different method than the other. Does anyone have any wisdom on if this is something I should care about?

Same brass, they just probably have multiple crimping machines that use different methods? Are these vastly different and made in different factories with different batches of brass?? Should I care?

Should I just suck it up and buy brass? Ha.

Snuby642 · Sep 25, 2024

No don't buy brass.

I use a lot of different brass I get off a nice clean range.
Lake City brass may be made at multiple locations for the contracts. That's why I don't use it for precision rounds if I can help it.

Go to a range that has yuppies buying thier range brass.

Sort those out as the predominant brass. Use that, no one will use some of those brands because the cheap store round wont group.

There is nothing wrong with it, that brass is good to go.

dcmdon · Oct 16, 2024

I was asking about setting up a dedicated .223 brass prep press on another forum. A guy mentioned that he had used this company for bulk processing.

This isn't necessarily for precision rifle brass. But for loading volumes of AR brass, at $129 for 2500, it's really not worth doing it yourself.

https://msprocessedbrass.com/product/brass-processing-service/223-556

dcmdon · Oct 16, 2024

Snuby642 said:
No don't buy brass.

I use a lot of different brass I get off a nice clean range.
Lake City brass may be made at multiple locations for the contracts. That's why I don't use it for precision rounds if I can help it.

Go to a range that has yuppies buying thier range brass.

Sort those out as the predominant brass. Use that, no one will use some of those brands because the cheap store round wont group.

There is nothing wrong with it, that brass is good to go.

Thank you. I guess its all about knowing that all the brass in a batch is as consistent as possible.

I've got several hundred pieces of Federal Gold Medal Match brass, easy to identify because of the sealant on the base of the primer. It may not be the longest lasting brass. But if it's full length resized and trimmed to length, it weighs in very consistently and gives good SD and ES.

I've also got about 800 pieces of PMC. Ha. I should size and trim some of them and see how they weigh in.

padom · Oct 16, 2024

Snuby642 said:
Lake City brass may be made at multiple locations for the contracts. That's why I don't use it for precision rounds if I can help it.

As long as it's matching headstamp LC it shoots excellent and as good as lapua in my bolt guns... mixed headstamp is a different story.. I'll group in 100pc batchs by headstamp for precision AR ammo.. LC 09, LC 12, LC 14, LC 07, ETC

Xferbuckeye · Nov 14, 2024

Anyone have experience and/or opinion on RWS brass for 223. I know RWS as a brand, but not their 223 brass. Will be using in a bolt gun and saw a bunch of it at a great price.

Cr1775 · Nov 14, 2024

Brownells had that in the store in IA the employees said they were using it to great affect.

Xferbuckeye · Nov 14, 2024

That’s where I got it from. I’ll report back once I get the chance to put it through its paces.

AMG04 · Tuesday at 11:11 PM

Origin SA
26" Proof Comp. 1-7
Berger 80.5gr
23.7gr AR-Comp
LC '11
2.490 COAL

Avg. 2931fps

Screenshot_20241217_150017_Range Buddy.jpg

Ex E6 · Thursday at 8:39 PM

Xferbuckeye said:
Anyone have experience and/or opinion on RWS brass for 223. I know RWS as a brand, but not their 223 brass. Will be using in a bolt gun and saw a bunch of it at a great price.

I regularly use RWS brass ( not so much in 5.56X45 but other calibers ) as well as Norma , Lapua , FN and LC .
Sometime back in the 90's I made a terrific score on some RWS as well as F.N. Belgium 5.56X45 & 7.62X51 . Retrospectively , I should have bought a pallet of the stuff . Very accurate Military grade and excellent cases

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