Well I’m going to take the plunge and start reloading .223 Remington. I reload 45 acp, 45 colt, 38/357, .380, 308, 7.62x 39 with Lee dies and have good luck with them. Curious as to which ones folks lean towards. My rifle is going to be used mainly for plinking and maybe down the road, a little competition. Leaning towards the Lee cause I like to do the crimp in a seperate step and like their crimp dies.
If you are going to shoot competition at any point I would not get the Lee set. The OAL sucks on mine. Any given round can be from 2.245-2.262. I went out and bought a set of RCBS dies because I did not have the problem on with my buddies RCBS .223 dies. Trying to sell my Lees right now and nobody will give me more than 10 bucks for them. Guess others may have found out the same thing that I did. I am really picky too but the whole floating rod or whatever it is I have a problem with it being able to move after each round is seated. The RCBS from what I can tell does not.
You can always mix and match dies. Use a Lee crimp die with someone elses sizer and potentially someone elses seater.
For example, if you want the RCBS X-Die to try and avoid regular trimming, you can get a Dillon or other brand seating die and a Lee Factory Crimp Die.
Redding micrometer competition seating die. It’s worth the $100.
Lee FCD always works well for me for the crimp.
I haven’t really noticed a difference in the FL sizer dies (I have Redding, Forster and Hornady in .223), other than the Hornady die I have has a much tougher decapping pin than any other except the Lee universal decapping die (I’ve never broken a pin in either, but I did bend the decapping rod on the Hornady once). It also resizes to slightly smaller dimensions, which I think helps slightly with feeding.
Thanks for the info. I use RCBS on my 45/70’s and think I might go that way for the .223.
You don’t need to crimp .223 – certainly can if you want, but that just tends to work harden the case mouth more than necessary; shortens brass’s life.
I use Lee FCDs in all my pistol rounds and do have one for .223, too. Just don’t use it for .223 anymore.
I’m using RCBS dies for .223 in a 30-year old Rockchucker II press; haven’t found much advantage to reloading rifle rounds in my Hornady Lock-n-Load progressive. Actually, will do some more experimenting with that press this week as I load some more .223.
Good luck!
What kind of press are you using? I started out buying cheap dies for my 550 but have slowly started upgrading to Dillon dies for pistol calibers. The progressive press is a lot smoother with the Dillons.
I thought crimping was necessary because of recoil. I’ve seen rounds thrown down at the range because the bullet had been pushed back into the case.
I have an older Dillion 450 that I use for my 38’s and a RCBS Rock chucker for everything else. Thinking of buying a 550 or buying the 550 update for my 450. Will wait til after Christmas to do much. Daughter turned 16 today and between her and Christmas coming up I don’t see much extra cash being around.:sarcastic:
I use Hornady for most of my reloading,I think all the Main Manufacturers are good,but I just kind of settled on the Red Box lately !!!
I don’t think they are doing it anymore,I’ll have to check,but Hornady was giving away boxs of Bullets with the purchase of there relaoding dies !! For my pistol,I use Dillion,I really like how they kick out the primer with there spring loaded decapper thing !! 
I use the RCBS small base die in .223
I was told the small base dies for auto-rifles.
I do not crimp on the .223, never had a problem.
I do crimp for the bigger calibers though, ie .338 win mag.
Good luck in your choice.