High-volume .223 reloading; to trim or not to trim?!
- Thread starter Doc M
- Start date
I'm new to reloading .223, actually new to rifle caliber relaoding where trimming is involved.I did 50 Winchester brass cases today by hand with the little Lee case trimmer,this was very time consuming as the brass needed to be trimmed .010"-.017", lesson learned, from now on keep the cordless drill handy!
This brass was from once fired Winchester Supreme cheap ammo,I was surprised by how much it was stretched,I doubt I will get many reloads from them.
This brass was from once fired Winchester Supreme cheap ammo,I was surprised by how much it was stretched,I doubt I will get many reloads from them.
Drill idea works great!Thanks!
I find with the chamfering it is holding onto the brass that hurts so much, as you need to grasp it very hard to produce any results.
I've recently started pressing my Lee chamfer tool into a nut driver (damned if I can remember the size though) and using that in a drill... if you can't find a good interference fit, you can wrap an elastic band around the outside and press it into one size bigger. Then, when done with one operation on all your cases, just flip the tool and do the other op.
So far I'm really digging it - will probably just get a second Lee tool to make it quicker (i.e. not having to pick out my tool with a dental pick and swap it around).
Using many strokes (via the power drill) with light cutting force saves both my hands and time.
-M
notsorichguy
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- The city that rhymes with fun
I bought a Lee 1000 for .223 reloading, I was trying to make some "cheap" plinking ammo.
After 15/25 buggered primers & wrestling with the whole -trim or not to trim debate- I started trimming all my brass to 15 tou under min length to make sure they would all chamber after the fact, but I was still having problems with the odd (about 1 in 5 or 6) buggered primers. This was causing a very viscous cycle of pulling apart rounds and when I had a bad primer powder would start gumming up the works (powder would trickle out of the primer flash hole). Net result I was spending more time with the Lee 1000 (taking it apart and cleaning blah blah blah) than when I was doing it all single stage.
So I finally just sat down one weekend and I re-sized 2000 brass, I trimmed them with my RCBS hand trimmer (lots of work) the chamfered and de-burred all the cases (lots of time) and then I re-primed all the cases. All told about 18 to 20hrs. Now I have 2000 brass that is the same outer shape, length, and match primer primed.
I took the re-sizing die out of my Lee so now it just throws powder & seats bullets.
That seemed to work fairly well but I was still getting the odd round with a bit much run-out, so I changed out my seating die with a hornady new-dimension-die for .223.
What I wound up with is; rounds that work well in all my .223's, my Remmy 700 (which I can get .67" with at 200y when I get real finiky while reloading) is shooting 1.12" @ 200y and my AR is just under .87" @ 100y.
So all I have really done is shave about 10 to 12 seconds off the time it takes to make each round.
But I can still make WAAAAY better rounds if I take that extra 12 seconds, that is the time it takes to throw a charge, put it on the scale and trickle up to the weight I want.
Is it worth the extra time it take to make super accurate rounds? In some cases yes. I have 500 brass that is in 50 piece 'sets' that are volume tested and neck sized, for those odd times a guy just HAS to show up his buddies, or for the club center fire match etc. but for gophers and coyotes and general plinking....... The lee works, for me anyway.
Cheers!
After 15/25 buggered primers & wrestling with the whole -trim or not to trim debate- I started trimming all my brass to 15 tou under min length to make sure they would all chamber after the fact, but I was still having problems with the odd (about 1 in 5 or 6) buggered primers. This was causing a very viscous cycle of pulling apart rounds and when I had a bad primer powder would start gumming up the works (powder would trickle out of the primer flash hole). Net result I was spending more time with the Lee 1000 (taking it apart and cleaning blah blah blah) than when I was doing it all single stage.
So I finally just sat down one weekend and I re-sized 2000 brass, I trimmed them with my RCBS hand trimmer (lots of work) the chamfered and de-burred all the cases (lots of time) and then I re-primed all the cases. All told about 18 to 20hrs. Now I have 2000 brass that is the same outer shape, length, and match primer primed.
I took the re-sizing die out of my Lee so now it just throws powder & seats bullets.
That seemed to work fairly well but I was still getting the odd round with a bit much run-out, so I changed out my seating die with a hornady new-dimension-die for .223.
What I wound up with is; rounds that work well in all my .223's, my Remmy 700 (which I can get .67" with at 200y when I get real finiky while reloading) is shooting 1.12" @ 200y and my AR is just under .87" @ 100y.
So all I have really done is shave about 10 to 12 seconds off the time it takes to make each round.
But I can still make WAAAAY better rounds if I take that extra 12 seconds, that is the time it takes to throw a charge, put it on the scale and trickle up to the weight I want.
Is it worth the extra time it take to make super accurate rounds? In some cases yes. I have 500 brass that is in 50 piece 'sets' that are volume tested and neck sized, for those odd times a guy just HAS to show up his buddies, or for the club center fire match etc. but for gophers and coyotes and general plinking....... The lee works, for me anyway.
Cheers!
rnbra-shooter
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Brunswick
This is my preferred way of loading good rifle ammo on a progressive press - do the sizing in a completely separate pass from the charge&seat.
FYI so long as overall case length is no more than "max", it should have *no* effect on whether or not a case will freely chamber. If there is resistance to freely chambering, it is something else that is touching (the case body, or the case shoulder, or the bullet).
It sounds like you already know this, but just in case others don't, it's probably worth pointing out that there are no safety problems caused by trimming a case to be shorter than the "trim to" length. For a case with a short neck (such as a .223) you need to make sure that you leave enough neck to reliably hold a bullet and keep it straight - but that's all that matters.
You're not the only person to have reported this. I am curious if your bullets are being "shaved" as they are seated? I find that the RT-1200 leaves quite a wide, very sharp square edge on the case mouth, which "shaves" quite a lot of brass when I seat a boattail bullet (which almost certainly does not matter for ammo for 600m and closer).
notsorichguy
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- The city that rhymes with fun
So this is what I'm doing now for .308, for those who've asked me how my setup works (this is my second YouTube vid, so be gentle!)
**Vid deleted** nsrg
-M
That's pretty slick.
I have 3 trimmers set-up, all 3 have a plywood base that gets 'clamped' to the bench with a pair of c-clamps when I am trimming (one for 30-06, .223 & one for misc.). I can also clamp them to the coffee table when I want to watch TV or when the wife complains that I am 'spending too much time in my Gun Room'. I also do most of my priming in front of the TV with a hand Primer.
I always run all of my brass throught the trimmer after re-sizing (even if it's a neck size) so I trim ALOT of brass...... It only take a second longer to trim the brass as opposed to measuring it to see if I should bother trimming it.... I have never even thought of putting a cordless drill on my trimmers...... I even have a drill that lives on a hook above my bench....
I already use the drill for chamfering & deburring & cleaning the primer pockets, but I never thought of putting it on my trimmer (duh!)I can see my trimming getting faster in the future!
Thanks Doc!
Cheers!
My pleasure!
It just occurred to me after getting a few messages about the trimming/chamfer tips I've posted that a picture was worth a thousand words... and maybe everyone HADN'T already thought of this stuff before me. I'm a big visual kind of guy, so a video seemed the natural course of things.
Would you believe I filmed that with my digital camera tucked between my chin and my chest? I must've been quite a sight... LOL!
As for the chamfer and deburr, I finally paid attention to what size I was using, and found that it was a 19mm socket with a hex-to-3/4" drive adapter so I can chuck it in the same Dewalt drill you see there. A few wraps of an elastic band give me a friction fit with the Lee chamfer tool and I can pick it out and change it around quite nicely. If anyone wants a video of this process, I'll put one up soon.
-M
