223 sizing die

[Cory porter]

There are matches and matches with very different requirements on ammunition specifications and consistency. I'm surprised nobody's asked you what type of rifle / barrel + chamber / competition is involved in your case. 223 Rem in competition is a chameleon number and covers so many different chamber and cartridge specifications that SAAMI standard specifications are only of any relevance to mass manufacturers of factory rifles.

What weight of bullet do you use or plan to use - the heavier the bullet in a suitable chamber in 223 Rem, the greater the demands on ammunition consistency and the handloading process if decent results are to be achieved in the likes of F-Class. Do you want or need to use a magazine? ........... and so on, and so forth.

If you're shooting a gas gun in XTC type matches, then the late Glen Zediker's advice in The Competitive AR15 is very apposite - don't shoot barrels out trying to achieve tiny group results; instead get a reasonable working combination then get practice in, especially on the offhand and sitting/kneeling stages. Benchrest and F-Class and a bit of pleasurable 'fun competition' at short ranges with club members each has its own very different standards and needs (and costs), and these differences affect the loading tools standards too.

It is a factory savage lrpv 223 setup to shoot Berger 80g vld. Matches will be small club matches. I use Harrells sizing dies on my other rifle but they don’t make 223.

I am either looking at the Redding type s, the le wilson or the whidden. Not sure if I’m missing anyone else.

my mistake for not specifying on the setup, it’s my first caliber I have reloaded that’s not benchrest specific and it didn’t even cross my mind

 

[Laurie]

It is a factory savage lrpv 223 setup to shoot Berger 80g vld. Matches will be small club matches

Right, so you want good kit and good results, but without the severe demands that loading 90gn VLDs in a specialist 223 F/TR rifle entails.

In theory, any good die set - and few if any people make bad ones these days - would do. But, as it's a factory rifle, neck clearances will be considerably larger than in a specialist piece with a 'minimum SAAMI' chamber. So, a bushing sizer is well worthwhile. Anything you can do to reduce the amount of case-neck working over the firing / resizing cycle will pay off. You can't stop more expansion movement in a factory chamber than in a gunsmith produced one, but standard dies size the neck down a great deal then undertake significant re-expansion. The Redding Type 'S' would be a very good choice as you minimise the reduction and amount of subsequent expansion when set up properly - ie a bushing dia. used that only sees the expander button barely 'kiss' the neck walls on the back press stroke.

Whidden makes very, very nice bushing sizer dies that use Wilson/Redding size bushings IIRC. Whether the results on the paper would be any different from Redding's in an LRPV is a moot question, so availability and price between the pair may be more important in practice.

There is an alternative that is rarely if ever mentioned on this forum, the Forster Bushing-Bump sizer. This is a bushing neck sizer, that also 'bumps' the shoulder, but doesn't otherwise touch the case body. Bushings only fit this Forster die limiting the supply choice.

I'm not sure how well the B-B concept works in a Savage LRPV chamber. Certainly some early LRPVs must have had very concentric chambers - I had one in 204 Ruger that I shot in UK 'Factory Rifle Bench-Rest Class' and it was the most accurate factory rifle I've owned by a fair margin. Anyway, in 'minimum SAAMI' 308 Win and 223 Rem chambers I've used the Forster B-B die exclusively for F/TR long-range ammo and have gone up to around 10 firings of Lapua brass in both cartridges using very high-pressure loads without ever full-length sizing cases. It seems the hard chambering and extraction that bedevils neck-only sizing is caused by shoulder movement not lower case case-body expansion. The B-B die doesn't have an expander ball so needs cases with very consistent or turned necks unless expansion is then done as a separate step (ideally with a mandrel expander die set up from Sinclair or similar, much better than the 'ball' used in conventional dies).

(Another alternative, one I now use for my 223 rounds is the B-B die used without a bushing, ie only bumping case shoulders followed by neck-sizing with a Lee Collet Die. The LCD needs no brass lubing and removal and the bump job needs the merest lube trace on the shoulders only, so is very clean and quick. Other 223 specialists in Canada and the US use a Redding or similar 'Body Die' followed by the LCD.)

You may find the 80gn VLD hard to 'tune', ie to get the degree of seating into the lands or jump to the lands turns out to be 'finicky'. The 80.5gn Berger LRBT is a non-VLD design with a similar BC, but often easier to get it shooting well. If your matches are short distance and/or on not too windy ranges, the latest evolution of the ancient 80gn Sierra MK is an excellent choice, and very easy to tune in most rifles. For short, up to 300 yards, the humble 77gn SMK can shoot really tight groups, but has a relatively low BC value. The 77s from all the manufacturers are usually easy to tune and shoot superbly at short distances, so don't discount them.

For brass Lapua if available. Consistent out of the box and very strong. I have been recommended to try the Norma equivalent by a well known US 223 Rem F/TR competitor on this forum whom I'm sure will chip in with his extensive knowledge of 223 handloading and component choice sooner or later. Norma has a bit more capacity than Lapua it seems although is not quite as strong and I'll try out this advice in due course.

It's a wonderful little cartridge and with 77/80s, you have a very wide powder choice, so aren't stuck on getting H4895 or VarGet if too expensive and/or unavailable, despite this pair usually being the punters' favourites in this application.

 

[searcher]

I do not agree with it if you are a competitive shooter, especially F Class where the bull is small, the distances long and the competitors competent. (Or other such precision sports.)

Definitely two ways to look at it. The best shooter usually won't win a match if his load sucks unless the wind is blowing. His expertise in wind reading often overcomes the load performance edge of competitors. But in calm conditions, beware the "average" shooter with a killer load.

 

[bucweet]

You guys are gonna laugh and I'm certain make fun of me, but use plain old Lee FL dies, use them for my service rifle, use them for my match rifle.......

Worry less about your equipment , you need trigger time. Matches aren't won on the reloading bench, matches are won on the line by the guys who know how to shoot!

Aaron

Lee will custom make a die if you send them some brass and of course some money

 

[Ned Ludd]

It is a factory savage lrpv 223 setup to shoot Berger 80g vld. Matches will be small club matches. I use Harrells sizing dies on my other rifle but they don’t make 223.

I am either looking at the Redding type s, the le wilson or the whidden. Not sure if I’m missing anyone else.

my mistake for not specifying on the setup, it’s my first caliber I have reloaded that’s not benchrest specific and it didn’t even cross my mind

Any one of these dies will work just fine. As mentioned previously, I use Redding dies, and I remove the expander ball from all of them, first thing. In the last few years, I have taken to using a bushing that is ~.001" to .002" smaller than I would use if it were to be the sole neck sizing step, followed by a 21st Century 0.2225" mandrel as the final sizing step to yield ~.002" neck tension (interference fit). For example, with Lapua brass I would typically choose a bushing of 0.248" if it were to be the sole neck-sizing step. However, you want the mandrel to do some work opening up the necks, so with the two-step sizing process I might go with a 0.247" or 0.246" bushing, followed by the 0.2225" mandrel. Obviously, one can experiment quite a bit with bushing/mandrel sizes in order to optimize neck tension for their specific setup.

There are a number of critical factors to getting the .223 Rem to shoot well for F-Class (F-TR) matches. Obviously, a .223 Rem will be giving up a certain amount of resistance to wind deflection as compared to F-TR shooters using .308s with 200+ gr bullets, even when using 90-95 gr 0.224" bullets. As a general trend, the lighter the bullet, the greater the wind deflection. However, you will get a little bit of that performance back with the ~80 gr bullets because of their [much] higher velocity. I've never loaded/used 80 VLDs, but there is a husband/wife pair of shooters at my home range that shoot the 80 VLDs out of 26" barrel setups (they might be Savage rifle setups, I can't remember with any certainty), and they are usually very competitive. As I recall, they are getting pretty impressive velocities with the 80 VLDs out of the [relatively] short 26" barrel, somewhere in the 2900-2950 fps range, and I believe they are using H4895 as the propellant. I don't recall the seating depth they are using, but you're going to want to test carefully that in your specific setup anyhow.

The are several keys to using a .223 Rem in F-TR. Obviously, the loaded rounds need to be straight (i.e. minimal runout). Any of the three dies manufacturers you're looking at can easily produce minimal runout if set up properly. As I mentioned, I remove the expander ball on all my Redding dies, but there may be different expander ball designs with the other manufacturers that don't induce unacceptable runout, so you'll have to gauge that on a case-by-case basis, depending on which die you select.

Second, velocity variance with the smaller .223 Rem is typically almost double what is typically seen with .308 Win F-TR loads, so the longer the distance, the larger the impact the higher ES/SD values with the .223 will have. I don't agonize over the larger ES/SD values, I just try to keep them to the lowest value I reasonably can, then accept that they will be larger than typical .308 Win loads and move on. With the relatively small .223 Rem case, sorting brass by weight as a surrogate for volume can help, as can testing different primers. Similarly, weighing powder to the +/- one kernel range isn't a bad idea, either.

Finally, (and this is the BIG ONE) seating depth is absolutely critical to getting the most out of a .223 Rem with heavy bullets in F-TR. I have no idea how the chamber on your rifle is set up with respect to using the 80 VLDs, but it doesn't really matter. You will determine/optimize seating depth for your specific setup empirically. If you intend to jump the 80 VLDs, don't be concerned if you have to test seating depth as far out as .030" to .040" off the lands (or more, assuming you have the room to seat them that far out). The anecdotal stories about VLD bullets having to be jammed are nothing more than that (i.e. "stories"). Sometimes jammed can work, but the optimal seating depth windows with jammed bullets in the .223 Rem are usually pretty tight/narrow in my hands. So I prefer not to seat bullets into the lands with F-TR loads unless absolutely necessary. If you take the time to find a seating depth out of the lands that works, it may be a bit wider and more forgiving. The main caveat to this is how long the rifle is throated, which plays an important role in how far off the lands you can realistically go before you start giving up too much case volume. In any event, when you find the optimal seating for the 80 VLDs in your specific setup, it should be obvious on the target.

In summary, I think you can go with whichever of the three die manufacturers you listed without any worries. As long as you select a reasonable quality die, the die itself won't be the biggest factor, so pick the one you like and move on. Probably none of the things I mentioned about reloading the .223 Rem with heavy bullets for F-TR will be news to you, either. However, I will re-emphasize that the smaller case size means that everything matters a little more. So extreme attention to detail is not going to hurt you (think BR loads).

 

[jlorenzo]

Any one of these dies will work just fine. As mentioned previously, I use Redding dies, and I remove the expander ball from all of them, first thing. In the last few years, I have taken to using a bushing that is ~.001" to .002" smaller than I would use if it were to be the sole neck sizing step, followed by a 21st Century 0.2225" mandrel as the final sizing step to yield ~.002" neck tension (interference fit). For example, with Lapua brass I would typically choose a bushing of 0.248" if it were to be the sole neck-sizing step. However, you want the mandrel to do some work opening up the necks, so with the two-step sizing process I might go with a 0.247" or 0.246" bushing, followed by the 0.2225" mandrel. Obviously, one can experiment quite a bit with bushing/mandrel sizes in order to optimize neck tension for their specific setup.

There are a number of critical factors to getting the .223 Rem to shoot well for F-Class (F-TR) matches. Obviously, a .223 Rem will be giving up a certain amount of resistance to wind deflection as compared to F-TR shooters using .308s with 200+ gr bullets, even when using 90-95 gr 0.224" bullets. As a general trend, the lighter the bullet, the greater the wind deflection. However, you will get a little bit of that performance back with the ~80 gr bullets because of their [much] higher velocity. I've never loaded/used 80 VLDs, but there is a husband/wife pair of shooters at my home range that shoot the 80 VLDs out of 26" barrel setups (they might be Savage rifle setups, I can't remember with any certainty), and they are usually very competitive. As I recall, they are getting pretty impressive velocities with the 80 VLDs out of the [relatively] short 26" barrel, somewhere in the 2900-2950 fps range, and I believe they are using H4895 as the propellant. I don't recall the seating depth they are using, but you're going to want to test carefully that in your specific setup anyhow.

The are several keys to using a .223 Rem in F-TR. Obviously, the loaded rounds need to be straight (i.e. minimal runout). Any of the three dies manufacturers you're looking at can easily produce minimal runout if set up properly. As I mentioned, I remove the expander ball on all my Redding dies, but there may be different expander ball designs with the other manufacturers that don't induce unacceptable runout, so you'll have to gauge that on a case-by-case basis, depending on which die you select.

Second, velocity variance with the smaller .223 Rem is typically almost double what is typically seen with .308 Win F-TR loads, so the longer the distance, the larger the impact the higher ES/SD values with the .223 will have. I don't agonize over the larger ES/SD values, I just try to keep them to the lowest value I reasonably can, then accept that they will be larger than typical .308 Win loads and move on. With the relatively small .223 Rem case, sorting brass by weight as a surrogate for volume can help, as can testing different primers. Similarly, weighing powder to the +/- one kernel range isn't a bad idea, either.

Finally, (and this is the BIG ONE) seating depth is absolutely critical to getting the most out of a .223 Rem with heavy bullets in F-TR. I have no idea how the chamber on your rifle is set up with respect to using the 80 VLDs, but it doesn't really matter. You will determine/optimize seating depth for your specific setup empirically. If you intend to jump the 80 VLDs, don't be concerned if you have to test seating depth as far out as .030" to .040" off the lands (or more, assuming you have the room to seat them that far out). The anecdotal stories about VLD bullets having to be jammed are nothing more than that (i.e. "stories"). Sometimes jammed can work, but the optimal seating depth windows with jammed bullets in the .223 Rem are usually pretty tight/narrow in my hands. So I prefer not to seat bullets into the lands with F-TR loads unless absolutely necessary. If you take the time to find a seating depth out of the lands that works, it may be a bit wider and more forgiving. The main caveat to this is how long the rifle is throated, which plays an important role in how far off the lands you can realistically go before you start giving up too much case volume. In any event, when you find the optimal seating for the 80 VLDs in your specific setup, it should be obvious on the target.

In summary, I think you can go with whichever of the three die manufacturers you listed without any worries. As long as you select a reasonable quality die, the die itself won't be the biggest factor, so pick the one you like and move on. Probably none of the things I mentioned about reloading the .223 Rem with heavy bullets for F-TR will be news to you, either. However, I will re-emphasize that the smaller case size means that everything matters a little more. So extreme attention to detail is not going to hurt you (think BR loads).

I have noticed your posts particularly on the subject of 223 and I very much appreciate you sharing your knowledge. Thank you.