Could be. Haven't loaded for 223 before. In my 243 and 6.5 ES was low and accuracy excellent without annealing.
- Thread starter padom
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So the issue is either the expander mandrel or the prep, or lack thereof of my case necks. I took the expander mandrel out and now all the shoulder bumps are mostly the same with a few being maybe .001" off.
Nylon brush with dry lube through the necks and die working near perfectly with brass now. 50 cases with most being bumped exactly the same and maybe 15 of them within .0015". Sizes like butter
Lanolin alcohol mixed sprayed on cases. The dry neck lube that solved my issue came with my Lyman case prep thingy. It's a white powder, not sure what it is.
Spray them in a plastic bin a few times. Toss them around, spray again. Let dry for 10 minutes
Try standing them up to ensure a spritz makes it into the case mouth then shake and spray the bodies a few times. When is cold out give it some more time for the lube to spread and carrier to evaporate. I typically go 20 minutes.
I use a rectangular cardboard box but that really doesn't matter Vs the starting position. The USAMU does similar with an aluminum rack and a lazy suzan.
bulletin.accurateshooter.com
Is nothing wrong with dry lubing the necks but is more of a seating step than resizing, so is worth investigating steps that can cut down time provided it solves your consistency issue.
I use a rectangular cardboard box but that really doesn't matter Vs the starting position. The USAMU does similar with an aluminum rack and a lazy suzan.
High-Volume Case Lubrication — Tips from the USAMU « Daily Bulletin
Each Wednesday, the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit publishes a reloading how-to article on the USAMU Facebook page. Recently the USAMU's reloading gurus looked at the subject of case lubrication.
Is nothing wrong with dry lubing the necks but is more of a seating step than resizing, so is worth investigating steps that can cut down time provided it solves your consistency issue.
I w
I'll try that thanksTry standing them up to ensure a spritz makes it into the case mouth then shake and spray the bodies a few times. When is cold out give it some more time for the lube to spread and carrier to evaporate. I typically go 20 minutes.
I use a rectangular cardboard box but that really doesn't matter Vs the starting position. The USAMU does similar with an aluminum rack and a lazy suzan.
High-Volume Case Lubrication — Tips from the USAMU « Daily Bulletin
Each Wednesday, the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit publishes a reloading how-to article on the USAMU Facebook page. Recently the USAMU's reloading gurus looked at the subject of case lubrication.
Is nothing wrong with dry lubing the necks but is more of a seating step than resizing, so is worth investigating steps that can cut down time provided it solves your consistency issue.
first time ive seen that article but ive been using one shot for inside neck lube for a few years works great.Try standing them up to ensure a spritz makes it into the case mouth then shake and spray the bodies a few times. When is cold out give it some more time for the lube to spread and carrier to evaporate. I typically go 20 minutes.
I use a rectangular cardboard box but that really doesn't matter Vs the starting position. The USAMU does similar with an aluminum rack and a lazy suzan.
High-Volume Case Lubrication — Tips from the USAMU « Daily Bulletin
Each Wednesday, the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit publishes a reloading how-to article on the USAMU Facebook page. Recently the USAMU's reloading gurus looked at the subject of case lubrication.
Is nothing wrong with dry lubing the necks but is more of a seating step than resizing, so is worth investigating steps that can cut down time provided it solves your consistency issue.
This worked. I had a few out of a hundred that were way off but most were the same and the rest were within .002". Loading for an AR not PRS so not a big dealTry standing them up to ensure a spritz makes it into the case mouth then shake and spray the bodies a few times. When is cold out give it some more time for the lube to spread and carrier to evaporate. I typically go 20 minutes.
I use a rectangular cardboard box but that really doesn't matter Vs the starting position. The USAMU does similar with an aluminum rack and a lazy suzan.
High-Volume Case Lubrication — Tips from the USAMU « Daily Bulletin
Each Wednesday, the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit publishes a reloading how-to article on the USAMU Facebook page. Recently the USAMU's reloading gurus looked at the subject of case lubrication.
Is nothing wrong with dry lubing the necks but is more of a seating step than resizing, so is worth investigating steps that can cut down time provided it solves your consistency issue.
After talking to Wayne, getting a die, and then going through a few load cycles... I've made the switch to using a Mighty Armory sizing die in 6creed.
I had been using a FL bushing die, followed by a mandrel die, and it worked great and made awesome ammo, but on my single-stage rig it meant handling the brass twice. Now I do both steps at the same time in one pass using the MA die.
Initially I was skeptical about the MA die's mandrel working as well as a "real" mandrel, but if anyone else is on the fence, think these pics say it all:
I had been using a FL bushing die, followed by a mandrel die, and it worked great and made awesome ammo, but on my single-stage rig it meant handling the brass twice. Now I do both steps at the same time in one pass using the MA die.
Initially I was skeptical about the MA die's mandrel working as well as a "real" mandrel, but if anyone else is on the fence, think these pics say it all:
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I've been using the MA 223 die for about 6 months and am very happy with the results so far. The seating pressure feels more consistent than with the previous die I was using.
Good post.
I'm just getting into expanders which makes me curious about these combo die / mandrels, I had a look but its not clear to me how they work.
Does your MA die look like this? Looking closer it looks like the stem is the same size at each end and step down a little thinner in the middle?
So how does it work? if the stem is the same size at each end I am most curious about how the dies sizes the neck (most dies undersize and then drag an expander ball back through to open it up to the correct size).
Does the mandrel sizing happen on the upstroke (when being dragged out of the neck like an expander ball) or on the downstroke (not sure how that would work with the need to typically undersize at this point to allow for brass thickness / spring back)?
Which leads to my next question - will it still work effectively if the necks get thinner? I am trying to decide between bushing and non bushing dies (each has pros and cons) and I'm going round and round in circles.
Sorry for the list of questions but I bought a MA decapping die recently and its a good product and they were great to deal with, if their reloading die fits the bill for what I want then I will be picking up one of them too.
So if you look real closely at the shaft you'll see there's a section of the shaft right past where the tip screws in that's fatter (shaped like a barrel):
That's the mandrel portion of the shaft. Mine measures .241", which is exactly what I have been using and what I want.
It looks a little wonky at first (at least it did to me), but in-practice it seems to do exactly what it's supposed to do. It looks like it acts like a normal mandrel on the way down/in to the case, and then also contacts the neck on the way up (sort of like a much "kinder, gentler" form of expansion than a traditional expander ball).
It seems to do the trick, and like I said earlier, I was skeptical, but the ammo I've been making with it is every bit as good or better than I made before using the separate specific dies and doing the processes separately. Those pics I posted earlier tell the tale, I don't know if I stepped on that case and drove it into the gravel or what, but it was fucked up, and the MA die fixed it up no problem.
As far as how it will do with thinner necks? IDK. Time will tell... the MA dies are indeed honed to a more "relaxed" neck size than a traditional FL die would be for sure, and don't work the necks as hard as an off-the-shelf FL die, so if one was using really thin stuff they could run into a problem I suppose...
For me with 6creed, I had used bushings at .269", .268", and .267", mostly settling on the .267" bushing for my stuff, and the MA dies seems to be set to that or something real close - most traditional FL dies are a little tighter at maybe .266-.265" so they'll size just about anything (overdoing it in the process and terrible for guys who don't anneal every firing).
FWIW the brass in the pics from earlier is blue-collar Hornady with ~8-9 firings on it, so it's certainly not Lapua-thick by any means, and things are working fine for me. I also have a mutt/mongrel set of 100 cases going that's "practice only" consisting of ugly cases from when I was first learning to reload for rifle and was an idiot, and repurposed 22-250 cases from PPU and Hornady mixed in, the Hornady ex-22-250 necks are super thin and they shot fine after a loading cycle with the MA die (they are just too thin to survive my usual standard setting on the AMP I found out hahahaha).
I do know that after talking to Wayne at MA, I'm not too worried about it. I had called to talk about the prospect of needing/wanting a different mandrel OD if I wasn't happy with the neck tension I ended up getting, and ended up talking to Wayne for a while... He's really into making a superior product than the bigger companies offer, so I doubt one would find themselves in a situation where Wayne would leave them out in the cold... I got the impression he'd custom hone a die and/or custom turn a mandrel shaft if that's what it took for his customers to to be happy and continue to consider MA the best.
One of the things I found enlightening was: Wayne seems pretty pumped about the types of metal he uses: he said multiple times that he takes pride in using hi-tech metals that start off in pure powder form so his stuff ends up perfect hardness and without voids... Personally, I think he's on to something. You can feel it when you use the dies, they're made out of nice tool steel like a good knife maker would use, not the usual cast stuff that traditional dies are made from.
Maybe just give MA/Wayne a call? He's a funny dude with a definite "cynical yankee" type of wit, I bet he'd be happy to answer any questions you have...
Hope this helps.
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Mine turns the inside of my necks gray, and if you run too much lube they stick coming out, other than those small issues I like mine a lot.
Side note this is not knocking Wayne at all, quite the opposite.
I think my third case in sizing stuck like I've never seen. Emailed pictures and I guess mine was shipped before final polish. Within a week I had a new die and shipped mine back.
Shit happens, he was very apologetic and took care of the issue immediately. Zero complaints.
Will buy again.
Side note this is not knocking Wayne at all, quite the opposite.
I think my third case in sizing stuck like I've never seen. Emailed pictures and I guess mine was shipped before final polish. Within a week I had a new die and shipped mine back.
Shit happens, he was very apologetic and took care of the issue immediately. Zero complaints.
Will buy again.
Sized 50 or so cases of Prime brass (made by ruag) using my 6.5 CM gold die. One of the cases couldn't be sized appropriately, I guess the brass was too thin on that piece? Weird. It sized in my Redding die fine. Most of the pieces were bumped exactly the same. Extreme Spread was still .004", the same as my Redding die, I've come to the conclusion the outliers are due to brass inconsistency, lube inconsistency, or press pressure inconsistency. I used the provided mandrel. The ammo it produced was good. I shot a 0.47 MOA 7 shot group at 200 yards. SD was 12. Quite good enough for me.
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