Well I am at a loss, trying to reload some .223 for my Spike's AR15. The gun chambers and ejects factor Remington, PMC and Winchester ammo just fine. I put together 30 rounds with various brass on my Hornady LnL AP and it won't chamber all the way and if it does it won't eject. I am using a Hornady full length resizer and even after resizing it if I put a piece of just brass in the chamber and let the slide forward I have to work like a mother to get the slide back and get the round out. A few times I even had to tap it out with a brass rod from the barrel. Everything is trimmed to 1.75 length, chamfered and deburred. I have tried seating a bullet a little deeper and a little shallower, nothing seems to matter. When I compare them side by side to factory rounds they looks the same and the measurements around the case and over all length are very close. I am not even sure which part of the case is getting stuck. I feel like there is something very simple I am not doing right, but I don't know what. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Wes

I suspect you need to resize using a "small base" die. To see where it is sticking at, color the case with a sharpie marker then chamber again and it will be apparent where the rubbing is happening.

Thanks Mark. I have never used a small base die before. I will have to look into it.

Here is a pic of two cases, the only real marks on it are where I circled in blue. Any idea if the small base die would help in these two areas?

Try chambering a sized piece of brass. Is your sizing die contacting your case holder? If the case is sticking and you are not in contact with the case holder then try turning the sizing die down half a turn more.

All the brass is sized that I am trying. The sizing die is touching the shellplate. I even moved it to my single stage so I could watch it better and it touches the shell holder so the base is going in as far as it can.

Remove the expander ball.

Make sure the die is bottomed firm again the shell holder.

Size a case SLOWLY and retract it from the die

Rotate 120 degrees and size again slowly with a dwell at the end of the stroke

Repeat the rotations and sizing slowly with the dwell.

Your cases should fit your rifle now.

Do not load anything until you have 100% of your cases known to chamber.

I was reloading for a friends 243 with no problems until I tried using brass fired in a different 243. Full length resized and it would not fit. Screwed dine in more, ground down shell holder a few thousands, lubed inside of necks with grafite all at the suggestion of Hornady. They said that the expander might be stretching the case. With all of this I got a stuck case, broke the press arm off of my press. I was using Hornady spray lube on the cases. Got out some 20 year old Hornady wax lube and everything worked great. What lube are you using?

SR4759: I will do what you wrote above and see what happens, even if it works though that is way to much work to load a 1000 .223 rounds for my AR.

army a: I am using Hornady spray case lube.

I ordered a small base .223 sizing die, we will see if this fixes my problem when it gets in.

Well I just went out to the bench and tried these things:

Took decapping rod and expander out.

Took a case that I lubed with the Hornady one shot and ran the ram up, rotated it 120, ran the ram, rotated it again and ran the ram. I did this with two cases and they both loaded an ejected fine.

I then lubed 3 cases with Hornady's Unique lube and ran them all in the die one time like normal. They ejected fine.

I then put the decapping rod and expander back in, got 3 new cases and used the Unique on them and ran them into the die one time each. They also ejected fine.

So I am taking this as the cases weren't/aren't getting lubed enough with the one shot. Has anyone had this happen before?

Thanks for everyone's input!

Just noticed you said you tried the sized cases.

I use a home mix of alcohol and lanolin. I probably over lube since I coat the case and neck lube (inside) every tenth one or so.

Could the expander ball been just a hair low keeping you from sizing the all the way?

Seems you have this fixed.