223 remington pressure signs is it to high?

The primers don't look flattened, and all you're seeing is primer extrusion into the firing pin hole. That's normally an indication of a sloppy fit of the pin to the hole, or a weak spring.
Personally, I doubt you can cram enough H335 behind a 55 gr. bullet to damage your rifle. Aren't you compressed right now?
 
I have a Rem. VLS in 204 that does about the same as those in the pic. I run them hot, but never have a hard bolt or any of the signs that go with pressure. I think Evel has it right, sloppy firing pin hole. Still goes bang when I pull the trigger, so I just don't worry about it.
 
Quote:28 grns of 335 just gets it to the bottom of the neck in a Winny case.

Ah, okay then, probably not a good idea to fill them full after all.
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I'm with Evil on this one as well, that is primer extrusion into the firing pin hole. There are VERY few 700's or any factory rifles that don't have a sloppy firing pin hole in the bolt face. Some are just more sloppy than others.

Another thing, what primer are you running? Some small rifle primers have a soft cup which can make extrusion into the firing pin hole in the bolt face more pronounced. In the 223 I run Rem. 7 1/2's or CCI BR-4's

I think you are fine with that load.

PaPa 260
 
I am using CCI small rifle primers. 27 grains leaves a good amount of room in the case. I am seating them to the recommended depth listed for that load and bullet.
 
OK.. Im just curious... 3 or 4 load books tell you what is what they deem to be safe in a rifle, but then another shows a large increase in powder charge so it is safe? 1 vs 4? Im not following here. How do we determine what is safe vs non-safe? Sierra publishes loads way over Max from other loaders? Just wondering why that is.
 
A little up date. I fired a standard Federal American Eagle 55 grain FMJ through the same gun. The case on the left is that round. I then took one of the suspect rounds and fired it in my Tikka 223, that is the case on the right which does not show any firing pin marks. Needless to say the firing pin hole on the Remington 700 is a bit big which you can se from the pic of the shell on the left.

The case on the right is the same load I was asking about. It does look like it has flattened the primer a bit.

shells_0610-2.jpg
 
That right case looks about how my AR flattens primers with Hornady factory loads. That doesn't mean a whole lot, I know, but it's also not an indication of excessive pressure. I wouldn't go up any more on the powder charge, though.
 
Thanks guys, I am going to keep shooting the load the way it is. I will check it a little more in a few months when the weather warms up. I see no need to change it as I am getting as good of groups as I can expect from a factory gun. It is always under a moa at a hundred and 200 and some times at 300.
 
SuperSeal that is exactly what my gun is doing. I might consider having it done this spring after I am done shooting dogs. I may also have them install the light firing pin. Is the lock time speed noticable?
 
You are going to be fine with that load. If it shooting that well out of a factory gun stick with it. Another thing I learned all these years of reloading, VERY seldom have I ever seen really good consistent accuracy out of a load that is running excessive pressure.

PaPa 260
 
Originally Posted By: Orneryolfart357OK.. Im just curious... 3 or 4 load books tell you what is what they deem to be safe in a rifle, but then another shows a large increase in powder charge so it is safe? 1 vs 4? Im not following here. How do we determine what is safe vs non-safe? Sierra publishes loads way over Max from other loaders? Just wondering why that is.

Comparing loads for bullets of the same weight across bullet manufactures isn't necessarily good data. The bullets make a noticable difference in pressure. Some are longer than others for the same weight because of thicker guilding metal and less lead, hence less chamber volume at the same COL, and so forth.

When I first got QuickLoad and was learning to use it, I modeled loads in Hornady, Nosler, Sierra, and Speer manuals because I had the same question as you. One of my first surprises was how much difference in pressure happens when one just changes from, for example, Nosler to Sierra with the same weight of both.

That said, there are a few smoking hot loads in bullet manufacturer's manuals. Sometimes they just vanish when a new manual comes out, sometimes they don't.

My hypothesis is that when the the testing organizations converted from copper crush (CUP) units on pressure to PSI using modern instrumentation I think they got a lot of nasty surprises when they looked at peak pressures. The copper crush method wasn't measuring peak pressure at all. It was measuring the work done on the copper slug by the pressure over time which is a very different thing than instantaneous peak pressure. Some bullet manufacturer's may not have finished going back through all their loads with the new instrumentation and the mix of old and new units, and pressure data, and resulting powder charges, exacerbates the situation.

Fitch
 
Originally Posted By: yoteblasterMartyn you must be looking at the data for the AR-15, that shows a max of 25.7. The data for the bolt guns shows 27.5.

The edition of the Sierra Loading Manual I have is the 50th Anniversary Edition. In the section, "Rifle Reloading Data, 223 Remington, 55 grain Bullets", the max load of H-335 is shown as 25.7 graions. No distinction is made in my edition between Bolt and AR-15 for powder charges.

Edit to add: That's on page 210.
Also, 27.5 grains of H-335 with 40 grain bullets in my 223 is max, based on my testing.
I don't know what your source for Sierra load data is.
 
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Originally Posted By: Martyn4802Originally Posted By: yoteblasterMartyn you must be looking at the data for the AR-15, that shows a max of 25.7. The data for the bolt guns shows 27.5.

The edition of the Sierra Loading Manual I have is the 50th Anniversary Edition. In the section, "Rifle Reloading Data, 223 Remington, 55 grain Bullets", the max load of H-335 is shown as 25.7 graions. No distinction is made in my edition between Bolt and AR-15 for powder charges.

Edit to add: That's on page 210.
Also, 27.5 grains of H-335 with 40 grain bullets in my 223 is max, based on my testing.
I don't know what your source for Sierra load data is.

Marty,

Your manual may be newer than mine?

My Sierra Manual is the 5th edition (Copyright 2003 by Sierra Bullets) which has AR15 load data on pages 213 to 222, and shows the 55g max for H335 as 25.7g on page 218.

In the bolt gun section of the exact same manual, pages 223 to 232, it shows the 55g max load for H335 as 27.5g on page 228.

So now you know where we got that data.
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I can say that looking at both loads in QuickLoad, 25.7 @ 3138 & 48,000 psi looks more reasonable than 27.5 @ 3.350 fps & 60,000 psi (5,000 psi over SAAMI maximum even with the increased case volume from using water grain measurements). As others have said, 27.5 is one smoking hot load. That may be why, if your manual is newer than mine, the higher loads have gone away.

Fitch

 
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