Resizing OK?

[Larryswn]

OK perfect. All my Brass is Lake City either 5.56 or .223 and it's all separate already. I have a bunch I picked up at the desert when we were all done, so it's random brass but all I've done so far is clean that. I have plenty of once fired that I can work with. I'll save the random Box for a rainy day or emergency.

 

[sparkyv]

i agree. You are GTG.

The gauge is to spec but your chamber is the real test. You passed.

Since you have a cartride gauge Larryswn, its a good idea to check your freshly resized cases. You would likely have caught that they were a tad proud. Lesson learned for next reloading session.

For me, I measure all my cases after resizing but before the primer is installed. This means resizing and priming as two separate steps. I do like priming cases by hand.
By checking their length after resizing, I can confirm if the resizing step has stretched them. Any cases I find over 1.760" go into a bucket to trim. Anything less than or equal to 1.760" goes into the reload bucket. I

 

[Larryswn]

They were a tad proud. Only did a few that way then realized the die in actuality was not all the way down as it could go. Now they fit in the gauge perfectly........ But I noticed some lube dents so now I have to go through the whole batch and see how many are in there. I'm using a lube die and realized halfway through I was using too much lube..... Other than that I was checking about every 10th case in the gauge and they were perfect. Can I assume the rest are perfect? They're all the same brass and only been fired once........

 

[Larryswn]

If possible I would like to avoid sitting there and putting 1500 cases in the gauge.....

 

[lordpaxman]

If possible I would like to avoid sitting there and putting 1500 cases in the gauge.....

I only do spot checks during reloading and then if it’s really important that every round chamber, gauge the finished round.

 

[entropy]

It will most likely chamber and fire; if you are going for accuracy, it would be better to trim it. I like RCBS' Trim Dies for this. They have a hardened top. You run the case up into the die, and anything above that, you file off with a flat file. Deburr and chamfer, and done.

 

[stillquietvoice]

neck to properly retain the bullet. Different manufacturer's dies may vary this ID size by +/- 0.001". This drawing of the ball thru the neck tends to pull on the brass case making it longer. You can measure the difference by measuring the overall case length both before sizing and after sizing w/ a caliper. I find the length change

I had bought a 50 count box of factory new bullets for my 223 bolt action 15 railed to fire. Careful measurement with calipers showed that they were .020 short from base to shoulder, the case oal was 1.750", I fixed the problem by pulling the projectiles and running them through my FL sizer die and replacing powder and bullet, but before I reloaded them I measured their oal at 1.755 in. I know that is a lot of case stretch for a single pass through but that was my result and all fired without issues.

As noted in a previous post chamber specs are different for different rifles. My AR chamber is bigger than my bolt guns so when resizing a round fired from my AR to fit the bolt gun the case grows longer than a case fired from my bolt gun and might need to be trimmed to fit.

If all your brass comes from new cartridges that you fired thru your rifle making them once-fired... you are probably okay to spot check a few cases per batch and make sure they are below the max case length. If you fire different brands of cases or different head stamp batches (eg. LC cases), spot check these separately. Don't assume different make cases will expand/stretch the same as some other brand.

Just went through this process with 700 mixed head stamp .223/5.56 brass. I measured them all presizing and post sizing and had to trim 100 out of 700, but that is my experience with mixed headstamp brass. If you ate primarily using your once fired brass this will not be as much of an issue.