is there anyting wrong with my reloading?

RL15 is slow burning powder in the 223, try something a bit faster burning with a lower charge weight to eliminate the compressed load..not that compressed loads are bad by any means.

load 4350 or RL19 in the 308 and you'll see the same thing happen
 
Also look into trying IMR 4198, varget as well as benchmark. I load 51 grains of IMR 4350 in my 308 with a 125 grain speer tnt, thats about as compressed as it gets if you want to feel the powder crush when seating bullets :D
 
I reload a lot of .223 with 75 gr bullets. I use imr3031 powder and load 23 gr. I will be loading 55gr and will use 25 gr 3031. Be more concerned about your over all length , depending on the gun ( mauser or Mag fed.) too long can affect the cycling.
 
yeah, I too thought you needed at least .05" or more of space so the bullet can move a little during pressure build up. But maybe for some calibers and guns it is different. I know nothing about .223 reloading. What is required from this bullet/casing might be totally different than what my .30 cal bullets might need.
 
If you start off by loading to the lands you will see signs of max pressures when you get there. This is not a bad thing. Once you find the load that groups best then start playing with seating deepths to tweak the load.
Some bullets shoot better if they are jammed into the lands, some shoot better .005, .010, .015 off the lands. Every rifle is different with different bullets. I have a rifle that shoots Sierra and Noslers very well just touching the lands. If I shoot Berger VLDs it likes them jammed into the lands.

You can always try using a drop tube when throwing your powder, it might stop the crushing sound when you seat the bullet.
 
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Winnipeg Toymaker said:
I reload a lot of .223 with 75 gr bullets. I use imr3031 powder and load 23 gr. I will be loading 55gr and will use 25 gr 3031. Be more concerned about your over all length , depending on the gun ( mauser or Mag fed.) too long can affect the cycling.
Click to expand...

This is one reason I don't like compressed loads. I found that the over all length of the cartridge would change as compression increase. Naturally I would be testing the compressed loads late in testing :(, since I always started testing at loads somewhat below max. So then I'd have to reseat bullets, if I wanted the compressed loads and non-compressed loads to be comparable in OAL; pain in the butt. I remember this being worse with small cases like the BR. There was usually more wiggle room in bigger cases (drop tube helped too, as noted). Nowadays I just keep looking until I find a powder that does the job without having to compress things, ball as opposed to stick powders was one option I usually looked at. Turns out to be not that difficult usually, especially with the powders that are available today. I liked some of the smaller stick powders from this aspect, when they appeared (or I found them), too.
 
thanks for all the replies. as to touching the land, I reload 6BR jam into the land, and 243 just touching. also if seat the bullet off the land then bullet would "crush" more.
I reload some test reload started with 24gr with 0.2 increment. just to be safe.
another note, I reload both SMK 69 HPBT and Hornady 68 HPBT, even though they are about same in length, but Hornady needs a lot more free bore. that's why it crushs more than SMK.
I will shoot them tomorrow and post result.
 
Neither should actually touch the lands. Should be a bit off the lands. You may be hearing the bullet moving in the case when you close the bolt.
 
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