Newbie, .223 flare or not flare

Gol499 · September 23, 2013, 09:18 PM

Brand new to the forum and new to reloading. Question about reloading .223 brass with Nosler 64Gr bonded performance bullet. Should I flare the brass to help seat the bullet? I am new to reloading and the bullet does not want to go into the brass at all, didn't know if I should flare the brass or if that would be a bad thing.
Any advice would be very hepful.

jwrowland77 · September 23, 2013, 09:50 PM

No flare.

Did you chamfer the inside of the neck to help? If you did, you might want to chamfer a little more. There's also a VLD tool that is also useful. That's what I use all the time on my rifle rounds. Get a Lyman VLD tool, and you won't ever have to worry about it again.

rg1 · September 23, 2013, 10:15 PM

Don't try flaring. Good advice to use a VLD mouth chamfer tool. A Hornady bullet seating die bought separately helped a bunch on seating all bullets in .223. The Hornady seating die has a sliding alignment sleeve which takes the bullet from your fingers and holds the bullet straight with the case and makes seating much easier and with less run-out than standard seaters. You'd like the Hornady bullet seating die.

Ifishsum · September 23, 2013, 11:02 PM

Flaring the mouth on bottleneck cartridges is only for lead bullets. With jacketed, all you want is an inside chamfer at the case mouth. Flat base bullets will take a bit of force to start in but that is a good thing.

September 23, 2013, 09:18 PM	#1
Gol499 Junior Member Join Date: September 23, 2013 Posts: 1	Newbie, .223 flare or not flare Brand new to the forum and new to reloading. Question about reloading .223 brass with Nosler 64Gr bonded performance bullet. Should I flare the brass to help seat the bullet? I am new to reloading and the bullet does not want to go into the brass at all, didn't know if I should flare the brass or if that would be a bad thing. Any advice would be very hepful.

September 23, 2013, 09:50 PM	#2
jwrowland77 Senior Member Join Date: March 23, 2012 Location: Conway, Arkansas Posts: 1,398	No flare. Did you chamfer the inside of the neck to help? If you did, you might want to chamfer a little more. There's also a VLD tool that is also useful. That's what I use all the time on my rifle rounds. Get a Lyman VLD tool, and you won't ever have to worry about it again.

September 23, 2013, 10:15 PM	#3
rg1 Senior Member Join Date: November 6, 2001 Posts: 1,125	Don't try flaring. Good advice to use a VLD mouth chamfer tool. A Hornady bullet seating die bought separately helped a bunch on seating all bullets in .223. The Hornady seating die has a sliding alignment sleeve which takes the bullet from your fingers and holds the bullet straight with the case and makes seating much easier and with less run-out than standard seaters. You'd like the Hornady bullet seating die.

September 23, 2013, 11:02 PM	#4
Ifishsum Senior Member Join Date: September 15, 2005 Location: Oregon Posts: 1,033	Flaring the mouth on bottleneck cartridges is only for lead bullets. With jacketed, all you want is an inside chamfer at the case mouth. Flat base bullets will take a bit of force to start in but that is a good thing.