New brass.223

[Txhunter76]

Reloading with new lapua brass for .223 should I expand and just follow the manual when reloading

 

[RegionRat]

You will probably find more than a few threads on this in this forum.
Some folks say no and some say yes.

I will say I have seen enough changes over the years and batches, and enough dents from shipping, that I always start with sizing even if it is just a mandrel pass.

I am not sure what follow the manual means, but in general if you mean follow through with all the rest of the process steps, the answer is again a yes with very few exceptions. Brand new brass doesn't need decapping or cleaning from the first firing, but needs just about everything else.

 

[xswanted]

I usually run the expander ball through Lapua brass and then load. Have always had good luck with that.

 

[K22]

I always full size new cases with the die adjusted to just touch the shoulder so I don't obtain any set back or lengthening (extrusion). The reason I do this is to uniform the case radially and assure alignment of the neck with the body. I've never used Lapua cases so maybe that isn't necessary with high quality cases like those but I found it to be necessary with Remington, Winchester, Federal and Hornady cases.

I use the expander to smooth out any dents in the necks which are often present in new cases. In addition, since I don't use bushing dies, using an expander is a must for me to assure that I don't have too much neck tension. Most commercial dies over size the neck. The expander compensates for this. That's what I do.

 

[AJC]

I just run my turning mandrel in the neck and load.

 

[Wooly]

Redding Type S Match dies with carbide sizer button or
Forster Bushing Bump die with sizer ball.

Both of these dies are bushing dies that allow you to set exact neck tension you want. As a general rule, I use .001" squeeze on rounds for a bolt gun and .002" on a semi auto. That is assuming new or freshly annealed brass.

Even with the excellent Lapua brass, some of the case mouths get dented during shipping.

 

[Ned Ludd]

I prefer to do one of the following with virgin .223 brass: A) open up the necks first with an oversized expander mandrel (0.223", ~.001 under bullet diameter) then size them down with a sizing die and the appropriate bushing to give approximately .002" neck tension (interference fit) OR B) size the necks down first with a bushing that is .001" to .002" smaller than I would use to obtain .002" neck tension, the size them back up with an expander mandrel that is .0015" under bullet diameter (i.e. 0.2225"), which will also give approximately .002" neck tension due to springback of the brass. I have been using the second approach more often in the last couple years, but either one works equally well.

Virgin brass straight out of the box typically has very inconsistent neck tension. I do not turn necks because my competition .223 rifles all have no-turn neck chambers. I also remove the expander ball from every die I own, and came up with these approaches to obtain very consistent neck tension with virgin brass. If the sizing die is set up appropriately, it will not move the shoulder at all on virgin brass. It only sizes the neck via the bushing. I have no issues using virgin brass prepped in this manner in matches and it shoots very, very well. Although I routinely re-do a complete load workup once the brass has been fire-formed just to be sure, getting the load back to what it was in virgin brass often requires only dropping the charge weight by a tenth grain or two to reproduce the same initial velocity obtained with virgin brass.

 

[Texas10]

I think Ned hit the nail on the head when he mentioned using virgin brass in matches. Unless I am planning on shooting a match with new brass, I would just run the cases over a mandrel to straighten out any dents, load and fire form to my chamber. Once fully fireformed and fully prepped, I could be confident in my load work up and match ammo will yield consistent results.