5.56 reloading

with your 16 in barrel and only shooting 200 yards a 60 to 75 garin maybe better. midway has a lot of factory seconds right now, they will drop in price to. avoid federal brass the stuff can be pretty soft, most guys use lake city. the star line is good to. in all find what your gun likes and shoots good. do you have dies or powder yet?.

I agree 60 to 75 will probably give you the best results. If you are primarily going to shoot targets match bullets in the mentioned weights generally give best accuracy. Hornandy bullets are usually cheapest

Three for 60-75 gr. bullets, and I'll second the Lake City brass, and Midway seconds for bullets-great deals, the bullets have always been excellent.

What they said except with the low price of 5.56 ammo why spend the time reloading it.

55 grain bullets will easily get you to 200 yards. When you get serious about accuracy try the Hornady 73 grain ELD-M.

It sounds like you have a plan
I’d suggest besides keeping your brass that you start getting your supplies NOW

The time to buy powder, and primers is now with the political uncertainty ahead. As we’ve seen in the past supplies get hard to get when antis are in office.

That said, get some reloading manuals and read all you can.
I like Rocky Mountain Reloading and Everglades Ammo for buying bullets.

Also know that 556 ammo usually has crimped primers so you’ll need to swage the primer pockets. I didn’t know this and learned the hard way.

Depending on how much you shoot a Lee Classic (LCT) press or a progressive may be needed to do the volume you need/want. But either using the LCT in single stage mode or getting a single stage press first is a wise move to learn the process, and understand what’s happening.

Reloading isn’t complex or hard, but it’s VITAL that you work safely. You have to be careful and when in doubt error on the side of caution.

Other than that. Enjoy. It’s a lot of fun and can be very relaxing.

I only shoot a few different bullets in 223. Hornady, Nosler or Sierra's plastic bullets shoot well out past 200. The Sierra is slightly more accurate. If I want more accuracy I shoot the 69 grain Matchking.

Lots of 223 brass is crimped, even some lines of commercial brass. LC is about as good as any.

There are lots of powders that work well. Just pick a few.

As a cartridge the 223 is easy to loadt. Except for dealing with crimped primers it behaves well.

In case you haven't loaded rifle before, quite a bit more effort than pistol. Size, de-prime, trim to length, primer pockets, (either swage or remove with counter sink), chamfer trimmed end, tumble, etc. Gather LOTS of brass first, make it sort of a constant project, always be doing something on them here and there. I have different boxes in different states of work, sized and de-primed, trimmed, chamfered, GTG, (good to go!).

Tool removes the crimp from the primer pocket. Sounds like you are an old guy like me; I only have a Pacific C press single stage and non- motorized too.

Use a Lee primer tool to remove the primer; it's sout and designed to remove crimped primers. Old days ws just used a knife to scrape/cut around the top of the primer pocket to remove the crimp. Now there are many options ranging from $ to$$$. I use the Lyman hand tool, one for small primer, one for large. Single stage folks don't load thousands of rounds per month, usually, but if you don't shoot 5.56 from a bolt gun, you will soon be looking at a turret press to keep up with the AR hunger.

Is a mandrel that forces the crimp back into the case head. I use a pocket reamer.
My AR likes the 77 smk. Surprisingly it does well with the Hornady 55sp.

brutus51 said:

Only use a single stage for everything, have been for 40 years. Thanks for the tip on the crimped primer pockets.
Never seen a swaging tool can you enlighten me?

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I just use a deburring tool run it aorund the hole for about 5-10 seconds, does the trick.

Honestly you don't need to go that heavy. I routinely shoot out to 547ys (off my back porch) with Sierra 69 SMKs.

My 1st step in processing AR .223/5.56 brass is to deprime, then clean it (I use steel media& tumbler) I then check out the pockets using a gauge: F



https://www.brownells.com/reloading...swage-gage-primer-pocket-gauge-prod71030.aspx

This gets me 3 piles: OK, need swaging and loose pockets that are discarded. For a swager I use a Dillon Super swage:


https://www.dillonprecision.com/super-swage-600_8_8_25263.html

My AR also has a 16" barrel with a 1:7 twist. I shoot 55 gr. Hornady FMJ's out to 200 yards with pretty good accuracy.

I use the RCBS swaging dies for primer pocket swaging. But, I'm cheap - I use a Lee Zip Trim to trim and chamfer, too. One thing I found handy was a neck expander, never needed it on anything else, but a tiny bit of expansion really helps seat, then a light touch with the Lee Factory Crimp Die to put the neck right back.
The only weird thing I found was my Trash Panda AR with a Bear Creek Arsenal 223 Wylde barrel, does NOT consistently chamber ammo sized with the Lee full length sizer. I had to buy the RCBS Small Base dies to get that issue resolved - the BREN 805 eats absolutely everything, up to and including cast bullet loads.
Why reload for .223? because I can make accurate ammo cheaper than the cost of GOOD ammo. I cannot load cheaper than the WalMart Tula 55gr steel case stuff, but that is barely minute of man, while I like things to be a little neater if I can. My good stuff takes a long time with case prep, but it's time I would otherwise waste surfing the net, playing video games or annoying the living daylights out of my wife, so it works out. But I did the cost anylisis and with supplies I can get here, I am averaging about $5+ for 20 rounds, with the cheapest halfway decent stuff local being about $7 for 20, and I am having fun doing it.

brutus51 said:

$110 bucks is a lot of money, think I'll find a reamer at work and try that first.
armoredman having fun and making more accurate ammo is what it's all about.

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While I agree with it being a lot, but when it comes to the bulk reloading biz..Time equals money, or better yet: money equals more free time....

It's all about context, some shoot more than others, in some cases a lot more. In my case, during the winter I process the bulk of my .223 getting ready for match season (3Gun) or a carbine class. That's anywhere from 2000-4000 pieces of range pick up .223/5.56. One attempt at doing this with a hand reamer and I'd be begging some company to take my $110 dollars.

brutus51 said:

$110 bucks is a lot of money, think I'll find a reamer at work and try that first.
armoredman having fun and making more accurate ammo is what it's all about.

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I use my chamfer tool chucked up into my drill press to cut out the crimp. But, I do want a Dillion swaging tool. If you are just getting into reloading now is the time to buy one. I already have a stash of brash that has had the crimp removed. If I'd of known 15 years ago I'd have one already.
kwg

brutus51 said:

Just got into AR's, bought one with a 16" barrel with a 1 in 7 twist.
Going to be shooting factory ammo for awhile until I gather up enough brass to start reloading, already reload for a little over a dozen rifle and pistol cartridges so I'm not in a big hurry, besides part of the reason for getting into it is because ammo is cheap but sooner or later I'll get the reloading bug for it.

Will want to reload primarily for target shooting out to say 200 yards so I'm thinking heavier 79 grain bullets will be the ticket.

Please give this newbe some direction and needed advise.

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Recently I've tried the 69 gr. Sierra Match Kings and have been real happy with the results. I have a 20" Wilson match barrel with a 1 in 8 twist. My best loads have been with 24.8 grs. of Varget in LC brass with a 7 1/2 Remington primer. Best five shot group was just under 1/2" at 100 yards. I might add that I tried CCI Bench Rest primers and the group opened up to .875" . I haven't shot it through the chronograph yet so not sure of the velocity. Hope this might give you a starting point.

brutus51 said:

$110 bucks is a lot of money, think I'll find a reamer at work and try that first.
armoredman having fun and making more accurate ammo is what it's all about.

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Here's a good reamer.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NOAH2W2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here's a good primer pocket cleaner.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EOUWV54/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

A good corded drill with adj speed and trigger lock works the best.

brutus51 said:

What is the actual diameter of a 5.56 primer pocket?

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https://ballistictools.com/articles/primer-pocket-depth-and-diameter.php

I've found it really, really easy to get accuracy out of 69 Sierra Match Kings (not the tipped ones - the older-style HPBT ones) over Varget without having to go chasing lands. I would recommend playing with that combo - I've run it out to ~420 yards thus far and found it to do all I am capable of asking from an accuracy standpoint.