Reloading 5.56 for AR15

[jaysouth]

My sequence for prepping AR brass is: Wash in soap and water, dry, decap,remove crimp, trim, deburr, tumble, size in small base X die, charge, load and store.

After match prepping LC brass for the AR, I switched to a bolt action so i could capture my fired brass instead of getting my stuff mixed in with all the junk shot up by other shooters.

ARs are cool and have a lot of bragging rights and everyone should have at least one. But I got tired of losing brass that was painful to prep and load properly.

[2ndtimer]

Originally Posted by jaysouth

My sequence for prepping AR brass is: Wash in soap and water, dry, decap,remove crimp, trim, deburr, tumble, size in small base X die, charge, load and store.

After match prepping LC brass for the AR, I switched to a bolt action so i could capture my fired brass instead of getting my stuff mixed in with all the junk shot up by other shooters.

ARs are cool and have a lot of bragging rights and everyone should have at least one. But I got tired of losing brass that was painful to prep and load properly.

I'm with jaysouth. I enjoy my AR's (all 4 of them, plus one in .308!), but for shooting varmints, I really prefer my Remington 700 SPS Varmint with 26" heavy barrel and single shot adapter. I can out each fired case right back in the box, instead of poking through Montana wheat stubble trying to find them.

[NWPilgrim]

Winchester brass seems good quality to me. The only issue I have with it is it varies a lot by weight over a period of years and decades. That implies different case volumes. LC has been very consistent in weight through various manufacturers and decades. So I can load mixed year LC and get more consistent results and I use it for all my testing and accuracy loads. Winchester and others I quit trying to keep track of and I just sort by headstamp and I use for shorter range blasting.

[armoredman]

Originally Posted by NWPilgrim

Small base dies squeeze the base of the case a bit more narrow than standard sizing die. This will allow sure feeding in chambers that may be a bit snug or carboned up. Personally I have never seen an AR15 that would not feed and extract normally sized dies, and never personally met a reloader who had a problem. Small base sizing will work harden the brass in the base more than normal sizing. So I would not do extra sizing on the brass unless I had a rifle that needed it. Chambers do vary a bit so a small percentage of rifles apparently need this extra squeeze.

As far as I know factory brass is not undersized at the base and I don’t hear any complaints about it. Now I may have to go out to the bench and measure some factory ammo versus my RCBS normally sized cases!

Congrats, now you have met someone! It wasn't carbon, it is a tight.223 Wylde chamber in my Bear Creek Arsenal barrel. i loaded for a while on regular Lee dies, (yes, with the dreaded factory crimp die), for my BREN 805, no issue, the military spec chamber eats everything. But the civilian spec Bear Creek barrel will reliably run on small base resized brass only, or, of course, factory rounds. I think the small base dies are doing OK, with red dot and no magnification I did this at 100 yards. Yes, i am a horrible rifleman compared to the rest of the Internet.

Last words to OP - try what you want, explore the options and have fun.