More reloading questions: setting up for BUCKETS of brass

[TheGerman]

I haven't reloaded in a few years and have recently got back into it. I've noticed that alot of things I used to know (Or thought I knew) have blended together or I have flat out forgot them. So instead of learning things the hard way, a few questions:

I have BUCKETS of fired 5.56/223 brass from the range I used to go to. None of them have been fired from my rifle, so I was trying to figure the correct course of action to use them for my AR15. Here's what I was thinking:
- Grab 50 of them from the same manufacturer
- Clean/tumble them
- Clean out primer pockets/flash-hole
- Set up the Full-length die via a LE Wilson gauge since I do not have the chamber length or shoulder length info for this rifle and size roughly 50 of them
- Trim back to minimum length as I am sure they are all over the place
- Prime/powder/bullet/crimp
- Fire the 50 and keep the brass
- Measure brass/shoulder of fired cases to adjust the FL die to bump back .003 so I can start on the rest of them (will this measurement for the case shoulder vary if I change brass manufacturers?


How does this sound and did I miss anything? Also, if I remember correctly, for a semi auto you should FL size every time and for a bolt you only need to FL size the first time and then only FL size if you have a problem chambering the round, correct?

 

[hessian]

I never crimp. Treat every empty as if you'd found it. FL, clean ,trim,load. Ordinary 55 gr. bullets and loads are listed. If you go to long heavy bullets, then carefully select the powder to avoid high residual chamber pressure.Or something like that.Oh yeah, that's for gas guns.Sorry.