I went to load up some light plinking loads so I took the published starting load from hodgdons web site of 25 grains of varget with a 60 grain hornady sp bullet. I loaded up 5 and took a box of 55 gr pmc. shoot both through a chronograph. pmc averaged 2750fps and the hand loads averaged 2650 with no real pressure signs so I loaded up 60 rounds and shot them on another range trip. when I got the brass out of the tumbler I noticed the primers were starting to flatten out and had 6 or 7 with case neck splits. should I be worried about any damage to my rifle?
- Thread starter slydog3
- Start date
Why hot loads? Get a different caliber. I doubt you did any damage to the rifle but I would re-ck all reloading procedures.
What chamber? What length barrel? Primer flattening is a possible indicator of pressure, sometimes its just soft primers. Longitudinal case neck splits are not a sign of pressure, they are a sign of hardened brass. Grains nor velocity look all that hot for .223Rem. I made a mistake once and ended up with five cases that looked like little belted magnums and had horribly deformed rims to go along with them, the AR has shot a couple thousand rounds since with out issue. I highly doubt you harmed your rifle.
Split necks on LC and other 223 brass accounts for 95% of the brass that I have thrown in the scape bucket. Loose primer pockets from pickup brass(never know what the previous owner did to it) and high grass account for the other 5%.
A hot load is 25.3 varget under a 77!!
Hot loads in an ar-15
It's hard to read pressure signs on an AR by examining the brass or primers. And what ARs will take varies widely. But the .223 has very limited case capacity. When I start blowing primers I back off half a grain and call that my max load.
It's hard to read pressure signs on an AR by examining the brass or primers. And what ARs will take varies widely. But the .223 has very limited case capacity. When I start blowing primers I back off half a grain and call that my max load.
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