Is reloading .223 ammo a pain?

[trisol]

I have never loaded rifle ammo before.

I was told by several people that it is a pain to reload .223 cal.

should i just buy factory stuff or is reloading worth my while?

 

[t-star]

it's no worse than any other standard cartridge- clean, trim to length, and reload- if you've got an ar , you may want a progressive- just be cognizant of the bullet weight /twist thing and you'll be ok- reloading or not is a personal choice or availbity of bullet weights- for instance, i've not been able to find 64/70/75 grain commercial at my local retailers- my ar has 1/7 twist- or it's expensive -but there's lots of 55 and lighter -fine for the 1/10 /12/crowd

 

[martinbns]

Most of my 223 shooting is plinking, I don't demand the same precision of my loads for it than my hunting rounds. I bought a 1000 trimmed, sized 223 brass off this site, now I just clean out the flashholes, cmafer them and load them up. Trimming and sizing such small cases was hard for my big clumsy fingers.

 

[Canuck223]

Since much of the cheap .223 ammo has crimped primers, it can be a pain. The tooling to remove the crimp isn't expencive or hard to use. It simply eats up time. Same thing with trimming. It isn't hard to do, but it takes time I'd rather be spending shooting.

If all you need is standard 55gr factory spec ammo, by all means check out the dealers on this sit for deals. Save your brass anyway, as one day you'll want it.

If you will want to be shooting the heavier bullets, you will need to load your own.

 

[guninhand]

If shooting in a semiauto, consider getting a small base sizing die. It reduces the chance of an overstrecthed case not being sized-down enough to be reliable, i.e. getting stuck in the chamber.

 

[NB.nagantsniper]

no worse than reloading any other rifle...........in my humble opinion .
nuff said

 

[Why not?]

Using a ball powder can take away most of the pain.

Ted

 

[Levi Garrett]

I use match bullets 53/52 grain. Reloader 15 powder 25.5 grains . The case is pretty much full. The cases load easy and Accuracy is excellent(twice as good as factory in my guns, but velocity is less than factory, this is not a big deal , as over 3100 fps is pretty fast. I also got wind of Varget being a fine .223 powder. Oh the old back off the size die trick works great. Only need 1/8 inch of contact with the bullet.
Frank

 

[CaptainW]

There is a minor problem to reload .223 - slightly overlube will case oil dent in the shoulder. Be sure to use just enough lube on the side of the case.

 

[notenough]

Another easy powder to load for is Win 748. It's very consistent and flows evenly. Makes reloading those small cases much easier.