I am sizing my .223 brass in a Lyman SB die. I found these Lyman dies sized the brass the most of any sizing die. Too bad Lyman stopped making them.
My service rifle gunsmith, Ronnie Morris of Match Service Works, he sees a lot of rifle problems due to oversized reloads. The basic story is that the customer has a new match barrel installed on his AR, and the customer has feed/extraction problems. The call always ends up with the customer telling Ronnie that they are use brass fired in another rifle. That other rifle typically has a huge chamber and their sizing die cannot reduce the brass enough to fit in a match/commerical chamber.
I have a hunch that manufacturers are adapting to the problems that reloaders and their standard sizing dies create. I understand Kreiger M1a/M1 Garand barrels are short cut with a reamer that has an extra large case head, and I will bet that other manufacturers are using reamers that are extra large , because of all the compliants they get from guys with oversized reloads.
I know the chamber in my 308 Ruger M77 varmit expands my case necks extra large. I would not be surprised if a Cerrosafe cast shows the chamber is large in other particulars.
Oversized cases will cause failures to extract. The rifle will crunch the case to the chamber, but once fired, the case is almost welded to the chamber.
I may be up to ten reloads on some of my .223 brass. The stuff is shooting fine. However, unless you set up a small base die with a cartridge headspace gage, you are likely to set the shoulder back too much.
I use RCBS water soluble case lube, a Redding T-7 press, and small base sizing .223 is easy.
Small base sized cases improve function, and interchangeability between rifles.
