*update*Making 222 brass from 223

Theshedhunter

Theshedhunter

Active member
I ran some 223 brass through the 222 sizer, trimmed and deburred. Looks perfect. I did some research on this and some articles mentioned turning the necks, or removing material from the inside of the neck that may be too thick. Is this step necessary? What say you?

 
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Your down in the old shoulder neck area and this can cause a thickening of the inner neck. It must be addressed or you will meet the Dreaded Donut.

Greg
 
After a lot more reading and measuring case necks I determined my rifle's chamber will allow me to size down 223 cases to 222 without neck turning. The donor brass is 1x Remington commercial 223, annealed prior to sizing down. I loaded up some mild loads and shot them this morning. And yes on the first one I was standing behind a tree with only my arm exposed when I fired the first one off, just as a precaution
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They all went bang and shot pretty good although it was not an accuracy mission at this point. No split necks, no pressure signs, no hard lift or extraction. I am going to see how many firings I can get on these vs. factory 222 brass with similar loads.




 
I had done a lot of brass prep that evening so I deburred them with a drill attachment cuz my hands were tired! Removed a little more material than I realized at the time.

Im a heavy chamferer anyways as I load alot of flat base bullets and get tired of picking them up off the floor!
 
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Well Jay I have about 18,000 223 cases and lots of time! Im also cheap as he ll.

If I can make it I will NEVER buy it and that goes for pretty much anything!
 
My old rule of thumb is: If you can drop a bullet through the neck of a fired case without resistance you should be able to get by without turning necks. I prefer necking up to necking down but have done both.
 
For anyone interested, I now have 7 firings with a hot load of IMR 4198 on this brass, with 2 discards out of the original 20 test pieces due to split neck. I anneal every other firing. Shooting 40 gr vmax with excellent accuracy.
 


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