Case length

[Capt.Dunsel]

Accuracy wise? Meh hardly unless your shooting match grade groups.


Reliability yes. I found out this weekend what happens when you skip trim to length. Half of my batch would not chamber or eject. .003 to .005 over length literally stops the gun. Usually takes a good wack rack to clear the round.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KPT0IyKfXhA

Last round is one of them. Was dealing with this all day. This one wasn't bad, but the others I had to slam the rifle brace on the floor pretty good to get it free. Tugging the CH wasn't happening.

Oh Look a Sig Brace to the shoulder . I would remove the vid ( just a little advice)

[CK_32]

Oh Look a Sig Brace to the shoulder . I would remove the vid ( just a little advice)

Video was shot and posted almost a week before the ATF letter was released.

No facepalm about it. Also it never touched my shoulder. Just brought the optic to my eye.

[Grunt81]

To the OP, I'm sorry you got bombarded with pistol trimming advice, since that's not what you sought in the first place, but you should've specified in your first post you were asking about bottleneck rifle cartridges. I will say though, it is my experience that straight-walled pistol cases don't need to be trimmed since they don't really stretch at all when resizing.

1.) If I'm not mistaken, SAAMI spec for .223 trim length is 1.740 to 1.760". That's why most trim lengths in manuals are smack dab in the middle at 1.750". I'm pretty sure that the Lee Zip trim uses a pilot so it doesn't make sense that some cases would be shorter unless you trimmed them without first putting the case in the shellholder with the pilot stop tightened up to the primer pocket.

What makes more sense is that you are using mixed brass, and some of the cases are too short to need trimming to begin with. I've found several FC cases that are between 1.732 to 1.738" after full-length resizing. You should sort your brass by headstamp to get a more consistent length after trimming.

If you want to sort of "upgrade" your trimming device, I use the Lyman EZEE Trim with .223 pilots. They trim to 1.752" in .223 and 2.007" in .308. Generally, the less you trim the more brass life you get so I'm glad the pilots err on the longer side of smack dab in the middle. I put my drill on top of anything handy, such as a box of 500 bullets, to elevate it. Trimming, chamfering, and deburring is as fast as I need it to be. Some guys even make a dedicated stand from a piece of wood to elevate their drill.

To answer your question, if some of your cases are 1.735 in length after resizing, you should be fine to just go ahead and load them. But I would still only work up a load for one headstamp of brass at a time.

2.) What do you mean when you say you have powder clumping up in the RCBS Uniflow? Is the powder actually sticking to itself, or is it grinding up in the wiping system, causing the handle to grind or cut sticks of powder? If the latter is the culprit, you might be able to take off the handle, disassemble the reservoir, and clean out any powder stuck in there that is causing it grind.

For rifle rounds, I weigh each charge but I still throw it from a Lee Perfect Powder Measure. With stick powder, if I have consistent technique, the throw is off by about +/- 0.2 grains at its worst. Then I trickle or scoop out some powder to get my target throw. However, with ball powders, it is spot on, with an error of +/- 0.02 grains.

Since you only want to plink and don't care about making match grade ammo, then you're probably shooting 55 gr FMJBT w/Cannelure bullets from either Xtreme or Hornady. If you want to alleviate having to weigh each charge, then use a ball powder such as H335, Winchester 748, CFE223, BLC-2, Ramshot TAC, etc..., While stick (extruded) powders are easily compressed for more uniform combustion, they meter horribly compared to ball powders.

[BoogNasty]

Grunt81,

Thanks for the advise, to answer your question about the powder it is clumping up on its self in wiping system, it was doing it more with BLC-2, I switched to H335 and the problem pretty much went away. I guess my biggest problem is I don't seperate my brass, I clean a large amount at a time and start reloading, I'll start separating before I start the process next batch, thanks.