I have been redoing some reloads for my AR that were first loaded in the
mid-1980s. I am finding that they will not completely cycle: some will not
fully extract, some will half-extract while another tries to jam its way into
the chamber before the previous round is extracted, many will not fully
chamber and many cause the bolt to close on an empty chamber after the
last round is fired. The frustration in getting to fire only one or two rounds
in succession is maddening!! I have tried raising and lowering the powder
charges with mixed results. I am redoing these rounds because they were not
fully resized when I first did them-- the last 1/10" wasn't run into the die
and I am paying the price for it now.

When I come up with a charge that cycles my 24" varmint upper, it fails
abysmally to operate my cabine upper. Does anybody have any ideas?
I have 8 pounds of Accurate 2200 Data Powder (basically a hot batch
of ACC2230 from about 1999) with which to reload several thousand
military cases in waiting. I am open to suggestions.

Is it possible for a die to wear out and begin producing oversize cases?
I am running the cases all the way up into the die, yet some will still
not chamber. What's wrong?

First, does the carbine cycle with commercial ammo, such as the offerings from Black Hills, Federal, etc.? Second, get a .223 case gauge to see if the round drops in that. This will tell you if your case is out of spec. What kind of carbine are you using? Some of the ARs have .223 chambers, which is slightly tighter than a 5.56 chamber. Carbines should have 5.56 chambers in light of the carbine's role. I also suggest going to www.ar15.com and look around in the trouble shooting section. Good luck.

I had to take about .030 off the bottom of the die and force the shoulders of the cartridge back more before I could chamber my reloads. They would chamber but the bolt would not lock completely. I had to do this with both the .223 and .243WSSM dies before they would work. Both now function perfectly and are very accurate.

Another issue could be the ammo was reloaded with standard dies, versus SMALL BASE dies...........yes, there were standard dies available for the 223 back then........

First of all military cases are usually stretched more than normal due to being fired in loose chambered full-auto's and so they have to be "extra"-full length sized. I encountered the same problem and the way I overcame it was to turn the die until it touched the shell holder plus about a 1/8th of a turn to compensate for press spring. Just turning the die to the shellholder doesn't usually work. If you feel uncomfortable doing this you should do as another poster recommended and modify a shell holder to accomplish the same thing.
Don't worry you'll get there the 2200 will work fine. You just need to make sure that your rounds are sized enough to fit in the tighter of your two chambers. Test a sized case and see if it will chamber without any forward assist before you stuff powder and bullets into them. Be careful to not chamber them too tightly. Good Luck.........DJ

My brother in-law had the same sort of problem with an Olympic AR. The problem turned out to be that he had been shooting laquerred ammo and the laquer on the rounds had melted to the chamber walls, due to the chamber tolerances it had built up to the point it caused feed and ejection problems. Olympic had a warning about this on their website at one time. It took a lot of scrubbing with a chamber brush to get it to function. I don't know if this might be your problem, just a suggestion.

I had the same problem with my bushmaster AR awhile back. I was attempting to use some Tu-2000 powder; it seemed to work great in bolt guns, but did exactly what you described in my AR, shooting some but not cycling all. A friend gave me a possible explanation. It involved the timing of the pressure spike from this powder in relation to the location of the gas holes in your AR. (and this could change from the carbine to the varmint model). Basically, my powder was not giving enough pressure to the gas holes to cycle the bolt because of the travel distance down the gas system. Don't know if this was the problem but I ended up changing to another powder and my problem went away. Just my thoughts.

I know you've probably checked this but, did you make sure the three gas rings on the bolt have a staggered gap?
Jeff

My thanks to all who replied. Yes; I did check the gas rings for staggered
gap. I have tried charging the cases with differing amounts of powder
because I thought that there might be insufficient gas pressure getting back
to the bolt carrier. I seem to get the best results out of the varmint upper
when I use more than 23.0 gr of either ACC2230 or ACC2200DP with the
limit being 24.0 gr of either. The carbine will not function with less than 23.5
gr of either powder. My testmule is a factory Colt carbine with 11.25" barrel;
if a load works in that gun, it ought to work in my "parts bin" carbine upper.
I have tried factory ammunition when this problem first raised its ugly head,
so I know it ain't the gun. My brass has been fired multiple times, but I have
begun to trim to length every case I process, so too-long shouldn't be a problem.
I run the shell holder smack up against the die with a little interference, so
I know I'm getting as much of the case into the die as I can. Something else I
don't understand is why I can pop off 20 rounds, then have to jack four or five
of the next magazine through the action before one will chamber. I then put
these rejects in the magazine and pop-pop them away with no problems. I
don't shoot Wolf and I don't shoot new ammo -- only very rarely will I shoot
new stuff. Any ideas?

What is a small base die? How are they different from standard dies? How would small base dies cure my problemo?

Shorties are notoriously finicky. Some have to have their forward gas port opened slightly. Is usually more a problem on 10" guns.

Have run a bunch of .223 ammo loaded with 23.3 gr of 2200 DATA POWDER behind 55 gr FMJs and WSR primers through a registered Bushmaster M16 with a 11.5" bbl. Works fine.
I do find that cleanliness is a must with a shorty. Clean it thoroughly and often. Use Breakfree on the bolt carrier.

Make sure you have the proper recoil buffer for a shorty. That can make a difference too.

Stuff was loaded on a Dillon 1050 using Dillon Carbide dies ... which I believe size slightly small. I generally run cases no more than 4 times before I pitch them ... simply because the weapon is so valuable that conserving cases is not worth the risk.