Originally Posted by
bedbugbilly
You mention good handholds - what are you using it in?
I went thru the same thing you are experiencing - "frustration land". I'm not an AR person, but shot a friend
s and fell in love with the 223 cartridge and bought a bolt action for target and fun. 223 brass seemed to be everywhere - just had to bend over and pick it up. Hah!
Mixed headstamps, how many times fired?, crimped and un-crimped primers and a wide variety of case lengths - so . . . added a primer pocket swaging die, case length trimmer and after processing about 500 +, began to ask myself if it was really worth it time-wise for the type of shooting I wanted to do?
I ordered 500 223 casings from Starline and never picked up another piece of 223 range brass - and for the shooting I do with my bolt rifle - it saves a world of frustration.
Sage advice to sort by headstamps and then process, etc. A lot of guys enjoy processing it - and lf you are shooting a lot of it up in an AR or similar, I certainly understand the "why" of doing it.
I load a number of different rifle bottleneck calibers as well as pistol . . . . but I have never gotten frustrated like I have with the 223 - not the actual loading process - I love that p but because of the urge we all have to save some $$ and use range pick-ups - especially a cartridge that has such a high % of military brass with crimped primers.
Hang in there Stopsign - you'll get it figured out. It is a neat and fun cartridge and the nice thing is that there are so many on here familiar with it - especially the processing of the brass, that a person can get answers to things that pop up.
Almost forgot . . . the one thing I found to be really helpful to have when I did proceed the range brass was a slide in cartridge gauge to check the processed casing. Every once in a while I would encounter one that the base was enough oversize that it would not pass the gauge . . . those went into the scrap can.
Good luck and have fun.