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Military Firearm Restoration Corner

Reloading 5.56


rdm1962

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I have spent about 3 hours prepping cases to load some 5.56. My neighbor, a retired Hazelwood MO cop gave me 2 @ 5gal. buckets of once fired lake city brass. The local Graffs store had Hornady 55gr for $48 per 500. I bought 2k and 4# of ar-comp. I forgot what time it takes to prep mil. spec. brass. I have deprimed, swaged and cleaned the primer pockets, re-sized, champhered and de-burred 1k cases. They are on in the case tumbler for a few hours. I have a Dillon 550 so loading them is the shortest part of the operation. I never re-size rifle brass on my Dillon. I rather do that on my RCBS. I'll try to load a few hundred a night on the next week. Looking to have so AR 15 and 10 fun next weekend. Ralph

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I've done a boat load of 556 on a Dillon 550b. Just make sure you keep a tad of case lube on them and run them through. With my progressive loaded, mixed military and commercial brass (not cleaned), cheapest 55gr bulk FMJ spitzer bullet and H335 powder, just chucking them through as fast as I could, I loaded up a bunch. Shooting that stuff through my Super-14" Contender I got sub MOA accuracy. I could hit stuff at 100 yards that you couldn't see without the scope. Golf balls at 100 yards would be no challenge at all.


So, I guess I'm saying knock the primers out, swag the pockets and go at it with the Dillon.

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I used to load 223's by the hundreds. Had two shooting buds with legal M-16's. Had to bring my own ammo and they insisted the powder charge be 10% below max and brass resized using an RCBS small base die. In the 70's it was one at a time on a conventional press. Later moving up to a Lee turret. We all eventually stopped the time consuming RCBS swage tool and started using a reamer to remove the crimp from US GI brass. Never had a problem just reaming the crimp. Some of the 70's loading manuals claimed possible problems from the primer not being completely supported. Now days I'd be using a Hornady Lock N load set-up but its been at least five or more years since I loaded 223.

 

Before Obama's election and Clinton's executive order banning the import of Chinese ammo and guns. Drove prices sky high. We were buying cheapie 223 for apx $75.00 per thousand. A thousand Chinese brass and boxer primed 223 was a few bucks shy of a hundred. Best I recall PMC 223 boxer/brass ammo from Korea was about 125.During that period the small savings on hand loading 223 was not worth the time. Not sure how much 223 I have left on hand but I should be good for a few more years.

 

One friend with a legal M-16 got busted for Cocaine and all his guns and ammo were taken by the cops. He's now a convicted felon and can't own any guns. My other shooting bud has his genuine Colt M-16A1 on the market for $25,000. Me I've still got my 1970's Colt AR-15 SP-1. My days of burning up 500 rds of 223 on a single outing are long over.

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