Experienced handgun reloader getting into rifles for first time

[ghbucky]

Hi All,

I've been loading for some time for 9mm and .45 acp. I picked up an Anderson 5.56x45 NATO AR the other day, and I'd like to get set up to load for it as well.

I have a Lee 4 station progressive press.

Any recommendations for powder/bullet combos and dies? I put my name on a wait list for Lee's 4 die set for .223, but I've read some comments elsewhere that there may be better options.

I expect I'll be scrounging brass or purchasing once fired brass, so I'll probably need full length resizing.

TIA.

[hounddawg]

bushing style full length dies are worth their weight in gold in my opinion. I prefer the Redding S style dies with no expander and decapping as a separate operation myself

[ligonierbill]

I use mostly RCBS dies, and that's what I use for 223/5.56. But I have dies from Redding, Lyman, Hornady, and Lee, none of which have disappointed me for their intended purpose.

Lots of powders work for 5.56, but I have had my best shooting with TAC and CFE223.

Your bullet choice depends on your purpose and the twist of your barrel. My current go to's are 55 Sierra HPBT (#1390) and 65 Sierra GK. But there are hundreds of bullets available. I can't say that my choices are the best, just that they work for me. Good luck, and have fun!

[Metal god]

Dies , any will work . I use Lee for all my handgun reloading and started my 223 loading with Lee dies . They will work just fine for standard plinking ammo . I agree that the bushing dies are very good but not sure that's where you want to start . It might though if that's where you ultimately want to end up . They may save on brass life ( reduced neck splits ) I won't recommend for or against them . If you have the cash to get the good stuff , what the hell why not . I can tell you this for sure . If I knew then what I know now I would not have bought half the crap I've bought over the years . Although having nice tools you will not be able to buy your self to better groups .

Bullets, I.d start with the traditional 55gr FMJ-BT . Just seat to the crimp grove and go shoot . Later you can play around with seating depth as you get more comfortable .

Powder , there are so many - Tac is good , H-335 , AR-comp , IMR-8208xbr the list goes on . I primarily use H-335 for my 55gr plinker loads . Meters great and gives very good velocities .

Brass , I do recommend using all the same headstamp but it's not a must . Do not work up a load using one headstamp then change to another with out reducing the charge and working back up .

Sizing your cases . You should always FL size rifle cases that are intended to be used in a semi-auto . The trick is not over sizing your case . This is controlled by adjusting your die in or out of the press . Let us know when you get your dies and we can walk you through it . Over sizing your cases can result in very poor brass life or even failure . Under sizing and you can have failures to feed . Bottle neck case sizing is very different then straight wall handgun case sizing .

[ghbucky]

Thanks all, I much appreciate the feedback and tips. I'm sure I'll be back once I get the required stuff.

[Shadow9mm]

Dies first, don't waste money on the lee 4 die set. For the AR platform, and semi auto guns in general you do NOT want to neck size, the larger casings tend to having feeding problems. its a waste to spend money for a die you wont use. I know this from experience, I bought the 4 die set, I have never used the neck size die. Any 2 die full length set will do, I would recommend hornady. If you want to crimp you can get the lee 3 die set, or the hornady and get the lee crimp later.

Primer So far I have shot cci winchester, and federal rifle. CCI seem to be the most consistent for SD and ES. Winchester seems to give about a 20fps boost for the same load, but they flatten easier. Federal don't flatten as easy but they are not as consistent as CCI.

Powders I primarily load 55g, I have tried benchmark and varget. I have had the best luck with benchmark. I get just over 3000fps with max and no pressure signs. varget come in pretty low on velocity.

trimming you will need to trim casings, for rifle brass. its a pain, but it is necissary. I really like my little crow gun works worlds finest trimmer, its fast and easy

brass if your using once fired i would sort 223 and 5.56 and keep them separate and work up separate load data. some 5.56 brass has less case capacity and in general i have found i get higher velocities from my 5.56 brass.

bullets I generally shoot hornady 55g fmj and 55g sp. the SP were the same price as the FMJ last time i bought them. The SP seem to shoot better so far. With things the way they are I would buy whatever cheap 55g bullets i could find and start working some loads up and see what you can do with what you have.

swaging some of the 223/5.56 brass will have crimped primers, you will have to un crimp the primer pockets the first time you load it. There are tools to cut the crimp out or swage it. I use the RCBS primer pocket swager tool that is set up like a reloading die. If you have a case prep center i would go with the cutting tool.

[Bart B.]

Centerfire rifle competitors learned in the 1960's that proper full length sizing dies produced cases that shot bullets most accurate.

And decent new cases usually produced better accuracy than neck only resizing. They're full length sized.

[Metal god]

Centerfire rifle competitors learned in the 1960's that proper full length sizing dies produced cases that shot bullets most accurate.

Well what happened to those guys in the 80's and 90's ? Neck only sizing sure got popular there for awhile ? You now even have guys now sizing the body first then the neck in a separate stage , what are these dummies thinking lol

OP this is sarcasm just so you know

[Ricardo China]

Im right in the same position as ghbucky, thanks for the advices.

[ghbucky]

Thanks all for the info.

However, I'm a bit confused about sizing. I thought the idea was that if you fired out of the same chamber, then you didn't need to do full length sizing. Can someone walk me through why full length is the way to go?

[Shadow9mm]

Originally Posted by ghbucky

Thanks all for the info.

However, I'm a bit confused about sizing. I thought the idea was that if you fired out of the same chamber, then you didn't need to do full length sizing. Can someone walk me through why full length is the way to go?

In short, you have to full length size for semi auto guns. Neck sizing is for bolt and single shot guns only. The reason is bolt guns feed relatively gently. Semi auto guns feed rather violently. The tight tolerances of fire formed neck sized brass are too tight and don't feed well in semi auto guns.

That said don't stress not being able to neck size, you can still get really good groups with full length sizing. These are from my $90 (on sale) brownells barrel with my budget hand loads (hornady 55g spbt at $0.10 per bullet) using my lee full length die set. it was trying for 1/2 moa, came in at 1moa.

[Metal god]

You need to FL size for semi autos because the case expands to nearly the same size as the chamber when fired . If you don’t size the case down by a few thousandths you could have trouble with feeding because you end up with no wiggle room with a fire formed case which could result in some resistance on the bolt closing .

Now you don’t have to FL size if you’re loading for a bolt gun because you are manually closeing the bolt and you can actually force the bolt closed by using more force on the bolt handle . Auto loaders you can’t do this with because they only have so much force/camming action to close the bolt and that is only the weight and momentum of the bolt it self moving forward . Because of this the case can’t be a tight fit creating any resistance when being chambered . Semi auto rifles generally don’t create enough camming action to force a bolt closed on a case that barely fits the chamber so FL sizing them down a bit allows for an easy smooth chambering action with no interference as the bolt closes .

[ghbucky]

Got it. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

[Metal god]

deleted

[joeanybody]

Everything seems to be listed out for you very well.
I would only reiterate that u need to at least sort out the military headstones from the rest at the beginning just to save yourself some headache cause those crimps can be a bitch if you aren't expecting them. Gotten more than one primer stuck halfway in the case. Beware some commercial loadings use crimped primers too.
Powder wise. I love cfe224 for plinking. Some people absolutely swear by varget but it meters horribly. Tac is good too as well as blc-2.

Primers-if it is an ar-15 would recommend spending the extra $5 for cci no. 41 military primers. They r harder lowering the risk of slam fires. Also they are almost a "magnum" primer so all of your powder gets used. Plus blc-2 almost requires that extra flash.

Just my 2 cents.

Have fun!
Be safe!

[ghbucky]

Follow up question on brass sizing for .223

My fired cases are 1.755"

After running through my Hornady full length sizing die (carefully adjusted per the instructions), the brass is 1.764" which means I'll be trimming after each firing.

Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong?

[edit for clarity]

[Metal god]

Great you're on to the next step . First yes and no that it's normal and below will help explain . Second I'll say the die manufactures directions are not always what you want to do . Meaning , screw die down until it makes contact with the shell holder then give it another 1/4 to 1/2 turn is not always best for your firearm . This will size the case to minimum spec or even smaller .

What you generally want to do is measure a fire formed case from the rifle you are loading for with either a case gage like LE Wilson case gauges https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuJYpm-qplQ&t=5s
Or a Hornady case headspace comparator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lR3Dx-Er-I

These types of tools will help you understand how not to over size your cases . If you over size your case each time after it's been fired you can create excessive case stretch at the web each time they are fired , the web is just above the head of the case . These cases below were only reloaded 3 times but I was following the die manufactures instructions to the letter . This resulted in case head separation which can be very dangerous .

The videos above should help you understand how to prevent this from happening and allow you to get 10+ loading from one case .

FWIW , When you size a case it does not compress down equally in all directions . As you size the case smaller the die is actually forcing brass to move/extrude in the direction of least resistance . That is towards the case neck resulting in the case getting longer not unlike squeezing a banana and all the stuff comes out the top . The further you size it down the longer the neck will get . This results in you needing to trim more then normal or after every firing . This is very common if you continually over size your brass or when sizing NATO 5.56/308 brass that has been fired from a machinegun because they have very generous chambers bloating out the cases when fired which results in more brass needing to be displaced to size the case .

I'll leave it there for now , I know that's going to be a lot to wrap your head around all at once

[ghbucky]

Metal God

That was terrific. Thank you! I was worried about overworking the brass with how much sizing was going on.

MOAR tools!

[Metal god]

Did you buy a gauge yet ? I forgot to tell you which one I like to use . I have both but find the Hornady tool to be the simplest to use and you can buy the bullet inserts for it as well . It also doesn’t matter if you have an over sized chamber . Some fire formed cases won’t slide all the way into the LE wilson gauges but that’s not an issue for the hornady tool.

[Nathan]

For sizing, you will want a gage like the Hornady or Wilson.

You will want to really check your sizing process. Progressives can flex too much and create CBTD variation.

It might be worth doing that on a good single stage like the rockchucker or MEC. My Hornady LNL AP varies about 0.003” over a bunch of cases. That’s OK, until you want to shoot bugholes!

[ghbucky]

The Hornady gauges are en route.

My press is a Lee 4 hole classic turret.

To give you a chuckle:
I finally went to charge cases on my current brass last night. Despite reading over and over again that 5.56 NATO is crimped, I assumed that since decapping roughly 100 of them with no real resistance that my Federal cases weren't crimped.

Oh, how wrong I was. So I've also got an RCBS primer swager en route.

Somehow, this project of reloading for 'Just' a new caliber has turned into a runaway beast.

As a followup question: How do I reduce the amount of sizing happening with the full length sizing die? The videos do a great job of explaining the why, but not really explaining the how.

My Hornady full length die instructions are to thread the die in until it contacts the ram face and lock it there. I'm assuming that the way to reduce the amount of sizing is to back the die off?

[hounddawg]

Sounds like you are well on your way, I started with Lee turret myself went full circle to arbor presses and am back using to the Lee for everything from 9MM to 6BR and .308 precision rounds.

On the sizing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azv1dxKQNvA

[Metal god]

Yes back if off/out , in fact put the shell holder in the press and adjust the die until it contacts the shell holder . Then back it “out” a 1/2 turn or so . Now check the size of a fire formed case with the hornady tool , you want your sized case to be .003 to .004 shorter then that measurement . Lube up a case and size with that die setting then check the sized case measurement with the tool . At that setting (1/2 turn backed out ) it should not size the case enough . Slightly screw the die down/in and size the case again then measure . Repeat untul you get the case sized to .003 to .004 shorter then your fire formed case measurement using the Hornady tool . Lock the die down there and test a couple more cases to be sure that’s where you want , it adjust if needed .

[Metal god]

I should add when using the cartridge headspaceen gauge you want to deprime the cases . Sometimes the primer can give false readings when you’re only looking for a .002 difference. Also is you are checking fire formed measurements from a semi auto like an AR you should measure at least 10 cases . Semi autos sometimes can give false measurements. The more you measure the better chance a pattern will be seen as to what your fire formed cases actually represents .

[ghbucky]

Thanks for the tip on multiple measures. I was just sitting down with a fired brass to take measurements and decided to check in here.