SuedePflow
Member
This seems to be somewhat controversial. I found a sack of once-fired .223 steel casings this past weekend in the bottom of my brass stash (it was my buddy's factory ammo). I got curious and loaded up 10 of them before I set off to the range. The things I noticed:
1) They don't seem to grow like brass does, so they all sized up with less effort and less resistance.
2) They also don't grow in length much either. All of mine case gauged perfectly and none required trimming at all. Huge win.
3) No crimped primer pockets means I didn't need to mess with the pockets and re-priming them felt better than brass usually does. When I say "felt better", I mean there was a very positive feel of seating. Very tight and consistant from case to case.
I loaded them to the exact same specs as the last brass loads I did; 25gr Varget, CCI primed, Dogtown 55gr FBHP, 2.250" COL. They shot wonderfully. Grouped just as well as the brass cased loads.
My local indoor range lets me pick up any brass that I want behind the firing line. Lately it's been slim pickens. But there's always a ton of steel cases laying around. So far, I'm having a really difficult time trying to find a reason not to start reloading large amounts of steel case .223 for plinking purposes.
Anyone else reload steel case .223? Any good reason not to?
1) They don't seem to grow like brass does, so they all sized up with less effort and less resistance.
2) They also don't grow in length much either. All of mine case gauged perfectly and none required trimming at all. Huge win.
3) No crimped primer pockets means I didn't need to mess with the pockets and re-priming them felt better than brass usually does. When I say "felt better", I mean there was a very positive feel of seating. Very tight and consistant from case to case.
I loaded them to the exact same specs as the last brass loads I did; 25gr Varget, CCI primed, Dogtown 55gr FBHP, 2.250" COL. They shot wonderfully. Grouped just as well as the brass cased loads.
My local indoor range lets me pick up any brass that I want behind the firing line. Lately it's been slim pickens. But there's always a ton of steel cases laying around. So far, I'm having a really difficult time trying to find a reason not to start reloading large amounts of steel case .223 for plinking purposes.
Anyone else reload steel case .223? Any good reason not to?
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