It almost has a belted magnum look, but can barely be felt with a knife. These have been fired 4-5 times. They’ve never been loaded very hot and no noticeable signs of over pressure. My guess is the brass is starting to fail?
Lapua Match 223 Remington brass sized with a RCBS FL Sizing Die (not SB). All brass came from the same lot and only a few pieces are showing this.
I think it’s just where the die stops sizing. Brass just grows outward. I think I see a little of that on my 308 brass sometimes.
Yeah, I thought about that too. It’s pretty damn noticeable on dirty brass that’s been sized (obviously), but it’s never this pronounced.
Since the base never gets resized, it grows a little more each time. Sounds pretty reasonable.
This is it. ^^^^^
So long as the cartridge fits in a loaded cartridge gauge and you are not shooting maximum charge weights, I would not worry about loading them.
Are you reloading for a AR or a bolt action rifle? I stop reloading brass for semi-automatic rifles after 4-5 reloads and scrap it. Let us know what kind of life you get out of your Lapua brass.
I’m running this in an 18" 223 Wylde AR. I haven’t done any extensive testing with any other brass for this rifle, but my 77gr load consistently shoots .5moa with this Lapua brass. I’m gonna start switching to LC brass and see what happens.
I’ve never run brass to failure. What kind of less obvious signs should I look for? I load these with a fairly tight headspace, so the case necks should be fine for a while. I’m more concerned with case head separation than anything.
There it is! My wylde chamber yields scary buldges near the case head too. Your die can only size it back so far.
I wonder what about a wylde chamber causes this over a 5.56 or 223? I’ve never noticed it on my carbine, but I use different brass for that guy. Fewer times loaded but same die.
I might test out my Redding die on this brass and see what happens.
I’m not sure, but I think with Q3131a1 I was getting kind of scary bulges. I had an instructor note that q3131 with a wylde chamber blows primers. 3131 being ridiculously hot anyway… combined with a wylde chamber, and you get problems.
I’d actually forgotten about my wylde chamber woes until you mentioned that.
Well, my Lapua brass is beginning to die after roughly 6 loads… I had to scrap a few due to loose primer pockets. If I had to guess, I might get 1 or 2 more loads with what I have left.
I want to make a bench top hammer forge that pounds the case head, and thus the primer pocket back into spec. 
I look for cracked case mouths, loose primer pockets and imperfections on the sides of the cases. To avoid any problems, I scrap it after 5 reloads no matter how it looks. That would be 6 firings of the brass, which I believe to be pretty good service life for rifle brass.
When I first started loading 223, I’d load it twice and leave it for someone else. I didn’t have trimming equipment and was just cranking out ball ammo for practice. Plus, back then, you could always find once fired to replenish your inventory.
Now I run it till the pocket can’t be trusted. I batch all the loosies together and shoot them all at once… then scrap them. We burned 160 rounds worth on Saturday.
Most recently manufactured sizing dies have a bevel cut into the die entry to make use on progressive presses easier. I see this as insanity when tapered rifle cases like 223 are involved. My Hornady and Redding sizing dies seem to have the smallest bevel cut. You can also look at older used dies to see if they have much of a bevel (chamfer) at all. The older rifle dies never had it at all.
Hmmm… gets good reviews for large primer pockets. I’m going to keep sniffing around for small primer pocket reviews.
FWIW, I never had that problem with my Wylde chambered AR service rifle in which I used Win brass & Hornady dies exclusively. And when I say Wylde chambered, I mean by the man himself!
Are you shooting any 5.56 pressure ammo?
I have one for small primer pockets. It works as advertised, but after about 20-30 cases, my ADHD kicks in and I wander off in search of excitement. Midway carries them too, and doesn’t charge everybody, regardless of their state of residence, local sales tax. There’s no reasoning with them.
Too funny. Yeah… I’m a bit of a glutton for punishment. I may have to order one of these.
Even just knocking 20 out at a time is not too shabby.
I think I had a loose primer pocket slip into my loads… I popped a primer today on some 77gr/TAC loads. I’m hoping to get 2 more loads out of this Lapua brass before all of it is done for.
BTW Mark, I finally found some H322 and loaded up some 77gr SMK with CCI 450’s. holy moly! .451moa! I’m gonna try to chrono them in the next few weeks. It’s marginally more accurate than my Varget load, but this H322 stuff is a lot more friendly to work with. I’m gonna have to find some Wolf’s and try to get this group a little tighter.