The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post

Kirbyman · January 2, 2010, 11:56 AM

Thanks for all the replies. My first order of business will be to get a case guage. I have them for other calibers, and rarely use them. But in this case (okay, mabe a little pun intended

) I will try it. I have tried many different reloading scenarios. At first I thought that it was a crimping issue. So, I tried with and w/o crimp, different seating depths, different bullets, etc. The cases with no crimp did better, but were still real tight. Again, everything I threw into the other Bushmaster fit with ease. I am now pretty convinced that the issue is with the tight chamber on the competition SS barrel. I like David's idea of the 5.54 chamber reamer. I'll do some Googling to find more on that. I think I will also try the Dillon tool to ream the primer pockets. The Hornady tool is okay, but it makes my hands cramp up after about 20-30 cases or so. My CCI primers are still difficult to insert using my Hornady Lock N Load. So difficult in fact, that I cannot use the Hornady as a progressive reloader. I do all the priming in the Hollywood machine. Are CCI primers good for the AR? I heard that Remington are not so good because they are soft and can contribute to slamfires.

Thanks again to all that contributed!

January 2, 2010, 11:56 AM	#6
Kirbyman Junior Member Join Date: December 27, 2009 Posts: 14	Thank you Thanks for all the replies. My first order of business will be to get a case guage. I have them for other calibers, and rarely use them. But in this case (okay, mabe a little pun intended) I will try it. I have tried many different reloading scenarios. At first I thought that it was a crimping issue. So, I tried with and w/o crimp, different seating depths, different bullets, etc. The cases with no crimp did better, but were still real tight. Again, everything I threw into the other Bushmaster fit with ease. I am now pretty convinced that the issue is with the tight chamber on the competition SS barrel. I like David's idea of the 5.54 chamber reamer. I'll do some Googling to find more on that. I think I will also try the Dillon tool to ream the primer pockets. The Hornady tool is okay, but it makes my hands cramp up after about 20-30 cases or so. My CCI primers are still difficult to insert using my Hornady Lock N Load. So difficult in fact, that I cannot use the Hornady as a progressive reloader. I do all the priming in the Hollywood machine. Are CCI primers good for the AR? I heard that Remington are not so good because they are soft and can contribute to slamfires. Thanks again to all that contributed!