.223 questions

[jglenn]

"how useless trimming is."

Wow, couldn't disagree more.. get a case neck too long from lack of trimming and you'll have issues with many Bolt actions.

Case gauges show you where your shoulder ( head space) is on Bottle neck cartridges.. they will show you your case length in straight cartridge like the 45acp( head space again)

Oh yeah on a bottle neck cartridge moving the bullet in and out has relatively no affect on pressure compared to a straight case... Mainly due to case capacity..

just my experience from dang near 50 years of reloading.


BTW what Rifle are you shooting the 223 in.. AR or bolt action

 

[biker_bill]

I don't always seat to the cannelure either and I've made thousands of accurate rounds.

I talked to the bench rest guys at our range. Many of them still dip powder with the plastic dippers, the powder being off by a little doesn't cause the group to loosen.
They focus on the OAL. That's what's most important to them.

I keep the brass within specs and trim when necessary. Some contact the cannelure and some do not.
They shoot a nice tight group.

If you want to make especially accurate rounds with the tightest group, sort your brass by size.
Load as many as you can of the same size brass and OAL.
Then compare that to a group with varying size brass and the same OAL.

You'll see a difference, it may be small, but it'll be there.
Those bench rest guys are all about small groups, so I figure they know what they're talking about.

Good on you for thinking and asking and I'm with JGlenn, trim that brass if it's too long.

 

[biker_bill]

I'll say this to - If the brass is too long, I set it aside until I have about 100 to build. Then I trim them all to exactly the same length. These are the one's I load with the better bullets, these are my most accurate rounds.

 

[Twitch2120]

"how useless trimming is."

Wow, couldn't disagree more.. get a case neck too long from lack of trimming and you'll have issues with many Bolt actions.

Case gauges show you where your shoulder ( head space) is on Bottle neck cartridges.. they will show you your case length in straight cartridge like the 45acp( head space again)

Oh yeah on a bottle neck cartridge moving the bullet in and out has relatively no affect on pressure compared to a straight case... Mainly due to case capacity..

just my experience from dang near 50 years of reloading.


BTW what Rifle are you shooting the 223 in.. AR or bolt action

have you ever measured your chamber length? i have 2 308 bolt actions with chambers that go all the way out to 2.84. spec is 2.8...trimming is over rated.

http://www.brownells.com/reloading/...s/sinclair-chamber-length-gage-prod32925.aspx

 

[jglenn]

yes and chamber lengths vary.. for the casual reloader who will never invest in those type of tools keeping the case length within industry specs is safe.

 

[Twitch2120]

Safe or you can spend 6 dollars and save hours of time while being safe. Trimming is a waste of time if you make a small investment in your sanity. Unless you like trimming. Then trim to your hearts content.

 

[Flashover16]

"how useless trimming is."



Oh yeah on a bottle neck cartridge moving the bullet in and out has relatively no affect on pressure compared to a straight case... Mainly due to case capacity..

just my experience from dang near 50 years of reloading.

And that is where I disagree with you.
it totally depends on the cartridge and the loading selected/ as well as powder type.
things that run near capacity case loadings and are high pressure cartridges already.
just a few CC smaller capacity (as in a shorter OAL) due to deep seating can become dangerous very quickly.
while we are talking here about the 223/556 lets remember that some cases aren't like that---22TCM, 357 Sig Sauer that are both bottle necks.

 

[jglenn]

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f28/bullet-seating-depth-high-pressures-49618/

this conversation is about bottle neck cartridges ..straight wall pistol are different

 

[JBKnifeworks]

I would recommend reading a couple of reloading manuals, front to back.

 

[jglenn]

in the Hornady article about 3/4 of the way down they also talk about case length and the issues you may have if the neck gets too long.

Knowing you overall chamber length would help you know exactly how long you could go before trimming above the industry standard length for that particular gun.( not that particular caliber). you can measure and keep track or trim to standard length. With some of the modern trimmers it takes me about the same time to trim a case as it does to measure it with a set of mics... pick a method and go with it

Point is to not let it get long enough to jam the neck into the end of the chamber.. pressures will go up in a hurry.

good conversation Twitch... it's always good for folks to know the reason behind some of the things we do in reloading.