Hello and new here to your forum,My question tonight is,What are your thoughts on a reloading section for the 5.56 nato round and for .223 as seeing ammo prices and ammo sources are getting a bit out of hand?
Anybody looking to share loads for each of these rounds?As i got about 200 once fired brass just need to find what is some good recipes as i have not bought a new edition book yet and been out of the loading seen for about 10 years and wondering what powder is also very muched liked in these rounds.Thanks and i am picking up a new DPMS Panther AP4 Carbine tomorrow after work so i am sure it will be a long day:D
Win 748 works great. It’s a ball powder, and measures very accurate. 26 gr with a 55 gr bullet. I have some Varget to try, but haven’t had the time. It is supposed to be a good powder. As much as I shoot, reloading is the only way!
I will be trying 25 grs. of H335 with a 55 gr. bullet pretty soon, this seems to a very popular load for the AR. Powders seem to be Varget, RL15, AA2520, IMR 4064, IMR4895, and BLC2. VV is popular but expensive also… I bought 2,000 primed cases and will try some different loads also, have been shooting surplus ammo mostly with some commercial thrown in…getting too expensive to buy now though…
Use Win or LC brass. Avoid Federal brass, it’s soft. Most good brass weighs in at 91.0 - 94.0 grains or thereabouts, this include LC. Some brands (e.g., PMP) will come in at over 100 grains/case so you have to be careful with those – they will generate higher pressure. I just try to limit all my brass to LC or Win and be done with it.
LC will need to be decrimped; either swage the crimp or ream it out.
Stick powders meter like doodoo, stick with ball (H-335, TAC, AA2230).
I like H335 for 55gr FMJ and TAC for 75gr BTHP. I think I’m going to try some X-Terminator for 55gr as well. I can get the Ramshot powders quite a bit cheaper than the others.
I like Varget alot. very insensitive to temperature. and being a short cut stick powder it meters very well. 2 favorite loads of mine are 69 sierra over 25 grns of varget and a 77 sierra over 24.5 grns of varget (77s need at least a 1in 8 barrel to really preform) Both these loads are fairly stout, I recommend backing them off a grain or so, and watch pressure signs. These are what I use in my NM rifles and the 77 load works great out to 600.
For plinking ammo, I’ve found around 24.3-24.6gr of H335 with Hornady 55gr FMJ’s or soft points to be very good shooting loads. I’ve shot several 10 shot sub 1" groups at 100 with the soft points and my battle grade rifles.
Not counting brass and with the bulk buys of powder and bullets I did a couple years ago I load 1000 rounds of ammo for about 130 bucks in about 3 hours.
For match grade ammo, I’ve had excellent luck with Reloader 15 and Varget. Varget has seemed to do better when the loads are near max.
I too use Win 748, I have my powder drop set for 26.2gr for my 55gr bullets. I am using Win primers. I have not had a FTF or any kabooms (yet).
The only thing I notice using the 748, is that is doesn’t quite light off the mil surp pulled tracers I bought as well as some of the other powder I used.
But, that is no big issue for me. I will continue to use the 748, I like the way drops, easy to measure and so far, as been flawless.
I am thinking about getting into sealing the primers…We’ll see. I usually only load 1000 rounds more than what I will ‘need’…So I like to see 1200-1400 on hand at all times, but I cycle through (on avg) 400-500 a month.
If you have not started doing so now, start saving all your brass.
Wow! You can say that again!
Brass is running $170/1000?! I miss the good old days of all the components (brass[once fired],bullets, powder, and primers) only costing $90 to $100/1000. That’ll barely buy just the bullets now, if they’re not backordered.
Unless you are shooting competition, E-Bay is your friend. The last brass I bought this last summer was Lake City. 800 rounds for 10 or 12 bucks. Once fired.