223 AI from "Basic" Brass

[Denver_AR]

Starline and probably other brass manufacturers offer "basic" brass. It's essentially 223 brass that has not been size down at neck, allowing reloader to perform final shaping/sizing for wildcat cartridge of their choice. In addition to sizing, it needs neck turning and annealing.
Has anyone tried this for forming 223 AI?

 

[just browsing]

Is there a specific reason you want to use the basic brass? It’s literally more expensive and requires additional work compared to their standard 223.

It might make sense if you were doing a random 6mm wildcat or something, but it’s a solution to a non-existent problem for 223AI.

 

[nso123]

Have you had issues with fire forming AI brass, or are you just curious about making it from scratch?

 

[918v]

Starline and probably other brass manufacturers offer "basic" brass. It's essentially 223 brass that has not been size down at neck, allowing reloader to perform final shaping/sizing for wildcat cartridge of their choice. In addition to sizing, it needs neck turning and annealing.
Has anyone tried this for forming 223 AI?

It would be absolutely retarded to form 223 AI from basic brass.

 

[M4orturnate]

Just buy lapua brass and fire it. Done.

 

[Denver_AR]

My motivation is both lower cost and saving time. Basic brass is about 1/2 the cost of Lapua but there's also the additional costs for fireforming the 223 brass; bullets, powder, primers, driving to range. Then essentially repeating this process again to perfect the load with the fireformed brass. If I could start with brass already formed for 223 AI, this would save me some time and money.

 

[Mike Casselton]

Lower cost and saving time?

Do you have forming dies?
Have you priced them if they are even manufactured?

Do you know how many forming steps it will take to go from basic to what is essentially regular 223 brass?

That's right. You won't be able to make 223 AI WITHOUT fireforming. The shoulder is too flat and you'll just crush the brass.

You'll still have to bring the brass to regular 223 size and then load and fireform.

You're not saving any time. In fact you'll spend hours setting up and experimenting on what process works, where you could be loading for fireforming.


Take factory or regular hand loads to the range and have fun. Come back with properly formed brass in probably less time than it takes to size down 100 pcs of basic brass.

 

[Aftermath]

I'll be the 6th to tell you to just load up or use regular 223, shoot and you have AI brass that fits YOUR chamber.

 

[just browsing]

This may be top 5 dumbest things asked here on the Hide, holy shit.

Starline lists Basic brass for $102/250 cases (.41 each)

Starline lists 223 Rem brass for $71.50/250 cases (.29 each)

If basic is half the cost of Lapua, the standard Rem is like 1/3 the cost… but you’re still comparing Starline brass to Lapua.

Why would you pay MORE for the basic Starline, still have Starline (and not Lapua), and then have to go through all the steps to form it on top of that?

 

[redbullitt]

Regular 223 brass does just fine that ive seen. In fact, plenty of lc brass here has been churning out easily submoa at 600 yards with a nice sedate velocity.

Not sure id want thr extra work... juice not worth squeeze or cost etc.

 

[Denver_AR]

Point taken. Thanks Mike and others.