556 trimming question + need advice

Still a newb -
looking for feedback- please -
I had 600 nickel cases of .556 range brass, 90% FC marked, 10% LC marked, all have crimped pockets, gifted to me.
All cleaned up beautifully with my wet tumbler.
I'm trimming them down to 1.7495.with the Wilson lathe trimmer. and yes, nickle trims a little tougher than brass
75% of them all trimmed to either .7495 or .750
25% of the batch too are short for the trimmer, I guess the factory produced them short.
What could I do with the shorter stuff, they measure at .743 to .748 ?
I believe I can trim them to .743 and keep them all together and they'll be all fine, according to the "internet"
I would be putting a real small crimp to the cases, so keeping sizes segregated is the proper procedure, I assume.
I'm looking to keep these nickel cases for use in decent accuracy, not LRPrecision, I'm not advanced enough, and my pockets are not bottomless -
I use a mighty armory decapper and TNT Gold sizer, Redding competition seater, Lee FCD.
have 68-77 gr. hornady's, smk's, (maybe even try an eld bullet)
other - any consideration in cannelure bullets vs. plain
powder choices- varget, cfe223, blc2, A2230, A2520, and a few more-
figuring to start at mid loads, then work up .2 or .3 up - using Lee, Hornady manuals,and Hodgin's online for load info and coal. I have no chrono at this point -
shooting out of decent AR rifle barrels.

edwardware said:

That's an impressive trimmer, achieving 5 ten-thousandths repeatedly. You're in a temperature controlled metrology laboratory right?


I'd suggest you go shoot. You're wasting time chasing variation that's meaningless for your application.

Once you're below 1 MOA, and pushing for 0.5 MOA, you might want to do a study to see if short vs long brass is detectable on target; I'll cheat and tell you that it is not detectable at that level.

Work on bullet quality and powder selection, and then go practice.

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I figured out how to turn that crank handle, and when to stop after about 300 cases, I keep it clean with a dab of oil, you can feel it when its done trimming. Believe me, I'm impressed with it also.

1911JAS said:

Can you let us know what rifle platform you are using? Also the load data, powder and bullet.

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AR platform, .223 wilde barrels 16 and 18 " one of those B.A. Hanson premium ones. adj. gas block, Geisselle trigger, I have others also. 6x pst gen 2 scope, I will graduate sooner or later to a better barrel. It can shoot 1 m.o.a. at 100y. with factory IMI 77g. smk's

I guess I'm kind of trying to cheat a little bit by the asking of powder recco's - I forgot to mention S.W. precision rifle powder, Norma 203b, tac, 4198, 4064, and I'm trying to get some 3031.
I know, I'm all over the place with powder, but with primers being so hard to pick up, I'm buying powders when I see a lower than usual price.
I don't have much in the way of work ups yet, my range fodder is just using middle of the road load data, 55 gr. 62g. berry's and rmr's. figured I'd try em all out.

I take it, that as long as the bullet is down in, and close to being as deep as the neck is deep, I shouldn't worry a bit? I do a hard press check against the bench, they don't ever budge, and I beat like hell to remove a bullet from the case if I have to.
That was my main question -

as far as saami length, I don't know what my chamber is, and I'd be using these rounds in multiple AR's
what I use is the Sheridan slotted case gauge. I keep the depth I size to at the B ridge and below the top of the gauge, for not wanting to size it down too much. It chambers fine in my barrels.

CMV said:

A couple things I didn't see mentioned:

#1 if it bothers you, cut them down and convert to 300BLK

#2 have you tried priming any? They may have been gifted for a reason I've never seen LC nickel and haven't used much FC nickel, but have a crap ton of Speer nickel 5.56 - all from Gold Dot factory ammo. The primer pockets are excessively tight. Makes perfectly good ammo, just much harder to work with. Swaging doesn't help - these all went thru a 1050, then the super swage 600 - so not a crimp removal issue, just a very tight pocket. No idea about yours, but might want to check and get them out of the mix now if they're going to be problems their whole life.

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your right on the tight pockets, I've swaged them on press, then I still had to use the rcbs pocket swager bit and then the k&n uniformer bit to get the primer pocket go-no go gauge to verify.

I'll be priming them this weekend.

Thanks chamokaneman - I guess this confirms the shorter length is g.t.g.
and it probably does not have much bearing on the accuracy of the round, as long as the bullet is seated straight in the cartridge.

I got the cases from my bro-in-law who is an instructor at the range, along with 20k more in brass. It's one of the reasons I got into reloading, plus the waived fee at the range, which goes out to 500 yards.

Thanks everyone for all your input..

here's a few pics of my messy bench and the nickel brass.