223 brass length

[ole farmerbuck]

I got a pile of mil brass. Cleaned,swaged,resized and quick job on uniforming the primer pockets. I noticed very few of them are needing trimmed. Most of them arent even up the min length. Should i trim all of them to the shortest case length or just trim the few that are over max?

 

[freakshow10mm]

Trim only when needed.

 

[ole farmerbuck]

Sounds good. Why they are so short even after resizing. Some are .004 or so too short.

 

[Deavis]

Define too short. What is the length of the casing?

 

[ole farmerbuck]

They range from 1.744 to 1.760. Very few of the longer.

 

[Walkalong]

After sizing, if they are over about 1.760, trim to 1.750. Some won't let them get that long before trimming back to 1.750. Too short won't hurt anything, but if they get long enough to jam into the leade it can cause severe over pressure.

 

[ole farmerbuck]

Yea i was just wondering if accuracy would be any better if i trimmed them all to the shortest lenght.

 

[Walkalong]

Consistency never hurts accuracy.

 

[ForneyRider]

Yea, I would go to shortest length.

Mine end up at 1.74-1.76in after f/l resizing and trimming with Lee trimmer.

RCBS recommends going .02 short for their X die. I use their die for 8x57, but not for my AR. Instead, I use the Redding bushing match dies.

 

[Deavis]

Trim them to be uniform, the minimum case length in the 223 spec is 1.740". You could trim to 1.745 and get everything but the very low ones 1.744". Depending on how uniform your trim is, that will be probably be within the variation of your ability.

 

[ole farmerbuck]

I use a RCBS power trimmer. I gets them all pretty close to the same. Guess i have a lot of trimming to do.