Greetings all,
being motivated by learning something new and paranoia that certain cases may disappear, I am have been trying to reform .223 cases into .221 FB, and ultimately to .20 VarTarg.
I have first cleaned and tumbled several different head-stamped cases (LC, PMC, FC and WIN5.556 mm), and then reformed them by Redding .221 body die. It went rather well as you can see from the attached picture, I lost one case out of fifty – the case developed crease along the entire length of the neck.

I have then cut the case several thousand of inch taller by a hack saw, and cleaned the neck, but not to the correct length. The reason was, that I wanted to take measurements and compare them with a (reference) Lapua .221 FB case.
The measured neck dimension is .254 inches vis-à-vis the Lapua’s 0.248. This has been expected, since the neck is formed form the thicker portion of the case.
The (relative) base to shoulder dimension, measured by a comparator/bump gauge, is 1.088 inch for Lapua and 1.092 inch for the reformed case. I thought that I did not adjust the Redding .221 body die correctly, but I discovered that it was not the case (no pun intended), the press’ piston clearly touches the bottom of the die.
I was surprised that the remaining dimensions are exactly as the dimensions of the Lapua, regardless of the case’s head-stamp.
I have two questions:
1. What do I do about the shoulder length discrepancy? Do I sent the die back to Redding? Do I ask a friend to shorten the die?
2. The hack saw method of cutting the cases is unsatisfactory; it takes a lot of time and it is imprecise. Any ideas, considering that there is a need to produce hundreds of cases.
Kindest regards,
M
being motivated by learning something new and paranoia that certain cases may disappear, I am have been trying to reform .223 cases into .221 FB, and ultimately to .20 VarTarg.
I have first cleaned and tumbled several different head-stamped cases (LC, PMC, FC and WIN5.556 mm), and then reformed them by Redding .221 body die. It went rather well as you can see from the attached picture, I lost one case out of fifty – the case developed crease along the entire length of the neck.

I have then cut the case several thousand of inch taller by a hack saw, and cleaned the neck, but not to the correct length. The reason was, that I wanted to take measurements and compare them with a (reference) Lapua .221 FB case.
The measured neck dimension is .254 inches vis-à-vis the Lapua’s 0.248. This has been expected, since the neck is formed form the thicker portion of the case.
The (relative) base to shoulder dimension, measured by a comparator/bump gauge, is 1.088 inch for Lapua and 1.092 inch for the reformed case. I thought that I did not adjust the Redding .221 body die correctly, but I discovered that it was not the case (no pun intended), the press’ piston clearly touches the bottom of the die.
I was surprised that the remaining dimensions are exactly as the dimensions of the Lapua, regardless of the case’s head-stamp.
I have two questions:
1. What do I do about the shoulder length discrepancy? Do I sent the die back to Redding? Do I ask a friend to shorten the die?
2. The hack saw method of cutting the cases is unsatisfactory; it takes a lot of time and it is imprecise. Any ideas, considering that there is a need to produce hundreds of cases.
Kindest regards,
M
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