How hot do you load 223?

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At any sign of flattened primers and/or ejector marks, you back off the powder charge.
 
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Sure - As a rule of thumb, the hotter the calibre, the flatter the primer. Which takes the discussion back to the point - its very difficult for a reloader to determine when they have reached max load pressures for a given rifle. Testing labs do have access to equipment that allows them to determine chamber pressure, I suppose an amateur reloader could go this route, if desired.
Otherwise, your chrony gives you the best evidence. Even then, shooting the same load in two different rifles can yield substantially different velocities due to barrel friction etc. Are the rifles running at the same pressure level?
 
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Kryogen

Some good info at the links below for pressures and velocities, make sure you look at the "Duplicating NATO cartridges (cloning)" section.

223 / 5.56 reloading
http://www.223reloads.com/home/223-5-56-info/223-5-56-reloading


5.56 vs .223 – What You Know May Be Wrong of
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/5-56-vs-223/

My practice load with Hornady 55 grain FMJ and 25 grains of H335 from a 16 inch carbine is 40 fps slower than the American Eagle M193 chart at the link above at 50,000 psi.
 
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that 24.7 TAC load was really mild according to quickload.
my 27.0 load of CFE is more like where I want it though. Maybe I'll even go a bit hotter in my next tests. Or not.
 
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