geigersd
Member
I've gotten to the point of making up my first .223 load. Here are the statistics, comments from you experienced reloaders are welcome. These will be fired in my Mini-14 with a 1-10 twist barrel. Since this is my first time reloading, my main goal is to be able to safely and reliably fire these rounds:
Cartridge: Rem-UMC (Decapped, cleaned, full-length resizing, trimmed to 1.750)
Primer: CCI #400 Small rifle
Bullet: Hornady 55 gr FMJ-Boat Tail
Powder: Hogdon H322
Starting load is 21.0 gr. Increment by .2 gr to a maximum of 22.8 gr. Ten rounds will be loaded per powder weight. Maximim load according to Hogdon is 23.0 gr.
Seating: I plan to seat each cartridge to an OAL of 2.226. My reasoning for this is to ensure the case mouth is halfway covering the cannelure prior to crimping. Per Hogdon, mimimum OAL is 2.200. Per Lyman maximum OAL is 2.260.
Crimp: Taper crimp using Lee FCD.
I've attached pictures of some not yet crimped dummy cartridges I made up to get my bullet seating depth correct. These rounds fit my magazine and manually chamber and eject without difficulty.
I am waiting on the arrival of my case length/headspace gauge, all cartridges will be checked using it. All measurements up to this point have been done using a digital caliper.
Any comments are welcome. Thanks in advance!
Cartridge: Rem-UMC (Decapped, cleaned, full-length resizing, trimmed to 1.750)
Primer: CCI #400 Small rifle
Bullet: Hornady 55 gr FMJ-Boat Tail
Powder: Hogdon H322
Starting load is 21.0 gr. Increment by .2 gr to a maximum of 22.8 gr. Ten rounds will be loaded per powder weight. Maximim load according to Hogdon is 23.0 gr.
Seating: I plan to seat each cartridge to an OAL of 2.226. My reasoning for this is to ensure the case mouth is halfway covering the cannelure prior to crimping. Per Hogdon, mimimum OAL is 2.200. Per Lyman maximum OAL is 2.260.
Crimp: Taper crimp using Lee FCD.
I've attached pictures of some not yet crimped dummy cartridges I made up to get my bullet seating depth correct. These rounds fit my magazine and manually chamber and eject without difficulty.
I am waiting on the arrival of my case length/headspace gauge, all cartridges will be checked using it. All measurements up to this point have been done using a digital caliper.
Any comments are welcome. Thanks in advance!
Attachments
Last edited: