SL brass Military 223 , will not accept Federal primers or Remington 91/2 they are to big to fit!!
Bill

Have you swaged the crimp out of your military primer pockets before trying to re-prime it? That is a necessary step, and Dillon makes a primo primer-pocket swage tool for doing it.

RCBS and numerous other tool manufacturers make less expensive tools that also work fairly well, and Lyman even sells a cheapy little reamer to do the job. I personally will never go back to any of those, having gotten a Dillon.

But, yes, you DO need to remove that crimp when reloading military cases for the first time. So, for many casual reloaders, commercial brass is a better deal. No crimp removal tool or time required.

In addition to having a primer pocket crimp that must be removed, a .223 uses a "small" rifle primer (about .172" diameter). The Remington 9 1/2 is a "large" rifle primer, about .210" diameter. The primer you want for a .223 is a Remington 7 1/2.

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:

The primer you want for a .223 is a Remington 7 1/2.

Or a CCI 400 or others. All the primer manufacturers make what are known as "small rifle" primers.

But you do have to swage out or otherwise remove the crimp from the primer pocket of military brass before you can reprime it.

This applies to 30-06 and 308 and other sizes of military brass too -- all have a ridge around the primer to keep it in place. I understand this is because this ammo is often used in machine guns, and there is a danger of primers coming out with the rapid fire of machine guns unless they are held on place.

I have used a lot of Lake city military .233 brass both in an AR-15 and bolt action Remingtons. Worked great! The primer crimp is easly removed with several brands of crimp removers. Just got through removing primer crimp from some lake city 30/06 cases using a Lyman case mouth deburring tool. A few rounds in the primer pocket and the primer loads easy. If you can find any .233 lake city brass made in the late 60s, grab it up!

couple more notes on military brass. In general it is a bit thicker than is commercial, and on occasion one must cut the powder charge back a tad. The other is most of the time it is more uniform than is commercial, lending toward a bit better accuracy

The 223 does not have a crimp.
I have been loading and shooting the brass for 6 monthes , I use CCI primers with out any problems , I bought it from Cabela's , Lake City
Bill

quote:

Originally posted by bill r:
The 223 does not have a crimp.
I have been loading and shooting the brass for 6 monthes , I use CCI primers with out any problems , I bought it from Cabela's , Lake City
Bill

Perhaps yOUR military .223 brass does not have a crimp. but much of it does. That's one reason why all the major tool makers make their crimp removers in both large primer pocket AND small primer pocket sizes.

Some retailers who resell GI brass remove the crimp before vending the brass. Others do not. Still others sell it both ways, with the "crimp-removed" brass at a slightly higher price.

A little reading of Shotgun News or the Gun List in the "Reloading Components" sections will soon show it available to you both ways.

Almost all of it is originally made with crimped in primers. The principal variety which does NOT have the crimp, is the "Match" brass made primarily for the military competitive marksmanship programs. It is made without crimping in the primers. It, of course, is not intended for machine gun use...

It may have a small remnant of the original crimp left and the dimensional difference of the other brands of primer may be just enough to bind up.

I got a killer deal on a bunch of military 9mm and 5.56 Nato. Or so I thought until I crushed two primers on the 9mm brass. So, you will have to swage the crimp out of the primer pocket prior to starting your loading sequence. Also the 5.56 is rated at a higher pressure than .223 brass so the capacity is a little less than regular .223.

I don't bother with military brass, it gets tossed.

Me either anymore.

I'm not a big fan of military brass, and pass over it when I see it in the brass buckets at the range. It's just a bit thick for my tastes, but to each his own. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

Hey Steve know you have reloaded a million rounds or two, but please throw all the military brass you have over my way. I have a good use for it!

So what brass DO you guys like in an AR besides military?

Any one having a couple thousand rounds of military in .233 or 30/06 I will pay the shipping and give you a tip for sending it! Can't beat that for the old junk military brass you pass up! Just make sure it is decent brass and let me know!

Lake City brass with a common headstamp is as good as it gets. I believe all the primer were crimped to one degree or the other. When weighed and properly prepared it is excellent. match grade is generally no better than the regular stuff, however it may have been NOT fired in a MG

I like military brass. It's cheap; I have in excess of 5000 cases, about half of which is primed and ready to load. The other half is cleaned, resized, decrimped, and ready to prime. The winters are long and cold here. I spent many a day this past January and February at the reloading bench, resizing, cleaning, trimming to length, chamfering any primer pockets that needed it and scraping the primer residue out of the pocket. I now have several gallon mayonnaise jugs full of ready brass; so many that it is anathema for me to load 'em and shoot 'em. Each jug holds right near 800 cases and I have several more powdered iced tea jugs full of them. We shoot alot here in rural Nevada; we need great numbers of brass like this. It's not uncommon to go out into the desert to the places where everybody shoots and pick up hundreds of mil brass and even new commercial brass. There is also 45ACP and 357 out there by the bucketful. Fernley is a brasser's paradise.