.223/5.56 brass

[Fng65]

Is it safe to reload 223 / 556 casings that have those pesky deflector dents on them. You guys are going to get sick of me LOL.

 

[dolek]

They will be fine, a small dent is OK on the body . Sharp creases and folds are a different story ,they are stress risers .

 

[Richard Coody]

Bent necks and mulitated rims.are a part of life with an ar.

Put you a small piece of sticky backed velcro on the shell deflector. Acts a cushion and will help reduce it.

You need to use an expander mandrel or expander ball to straighten them out. Often a bushing die with no expander will leave a flat spot. You will notice it on seating.

 

[natdscott]

Bent necks and mulitated rims.are a part of life with an ar.

Put you a small piece of sticky backed velcro on the shell deflector. Acts a cushion and will help reduce it.

You need to use an expander mandrel or expander ball to straighten them out. Often a bushing die with no expander will leave a flat spot. You will notice it on seating.

The velcro thing works extremely well. I do also agree that the necks are best ironed out with a mandrel if they are being badly dented.

That being said, a well-tuned rifle will often dent the side of the casing, not the neck. The dents in the casings, no bigger than they are, have NO impact on accuracy or function as far as the AR is able to go.

I will also add that the most common method of failure in AR handloads is HEADSPACE versus whatever the "dude on the press" set dimension on the resized brass. 5-7 mil is WAY too far unless you are throwing the casings away (which is, incidentally, about how they come from the factory).

1) Become well-acquainted with where your rifle kicks out casings in regards to the 1.4636" SAAMI minimum,
2) Observe that your NEW casings are probably no less than 3 mils under that 1.4636" minimum,
and 3) do not try to REDO that damage from the first firing.

All you need do is bump it 0.004" on an average and keep your rifle moderately clean. I use less at times, but my die controls my spread of sizes pretty closely.

The next most common issue is pierced primers. Tilt the powder can less, and if you get a lot of nasty craters, look to your bolt/pin fit for the root cause. Here's a hint: pins don't vary much at all in dimension, but bolts do. If you have a 0.059" pin, and a 0.064" bolt, despite them both being "within spec", the combination will (not may) produce nasty cratering and/or pierced primers, regardless of any normal load.

If you have a clean chamber and get soot on clean casings below the shoulder, but you are seeing craters, then you almost certainly have a bolt/pin problem.


Finally, the NEXT-est issue with reloads in AR rifles is the feed ramps. They ding up casings, and slice them, right at the neck and shoulder where they can lease afford to be sliced. This has nothing to do with M4 vs. M16, etc...it has to do with the machining of the barrel extension being left in "as-machined" condition other than cleaning off the chips and coolant.

The only 2 solutions to THAT issue, if it starts causing casings to split or pierce holes in themselves on igntion, is to replace the casings, or get the barrel out and polish/stone off the offending corners of the feed ramps/rear of the locking lugs.

These cuts are not to be confused with the linear scrapes along the body of the casings caused by the magazine. Those are annoying, but they don't cause issue because they are not that deep, and there's a lot more brass back there.



That's a lot of typing, I know. Hope it was useful.

-Nate

 

[Bill K]

Is it safe to reload 223 / 556 casings that have those pesky deflector dents on them. You guys are going to get sick of me LOL.

Safe ? Yes, just FL size as you normally do and use them again. Does not hurt to pad that ramp, as mentioned so the fired brass is striking a soft area, rather than the metal ramp on ejecting in your AR.