.223 sizing - bad brass, or?

[rvb]

Something I've not seen before...

throwing together some practice rounds, I decided to use some brass I hadn't used before... a few hundred Olympic 5.56 ("NPA" head stamp) cases I had laying around, all once-fired in my guns (bought as factory ammo). There was a LOT of resistance sizing. I was using a new bottle of lube (Dillon), so I made sure it was shaken well, re-applied and then Ended up with a stuck case. thought maybe lube was bad, so lubed an LC case and it went in/out like butter.

The brass fits the case gauge before sizing, just needed the shoulder bumped a hair. After sizing, the whole rim would no longer fit in the gauge. It seemed stretched around the head, like maybe there's so much reistance pulling off the expander ball I was stretching it to get it back out of the die?

Die is set right where I want it. Sized an LC and a Rem sample and they landed right where I wanted in the gauge.

what is up with this brass??? Trash? An annealing thing? I've loaded several thousand .223s and never seen this or stuck a case before...

in case anyone asks, Dillon 550, Dillon dies, Dillon lube, Wilson gauge.

-rvb

 

[oldpink]

This is all conjecture here, but is it possible that the cases are a shade too long and need a trim, or possibly the ammo as originally loaded was loaded from the factory a bit too hot and caused the web (area just forward of the extractor groove) to expand to the point it jams even with proper lube when run up into your die?
It's certainly not worth the aggravation of getting stuck, so you may have to just swallow the bitter pill of discarding all of that brass.
It's probably a bit alarmist to think so, but brass that is so hard to size could possibly have other failures (case head separation, blown primer pocket, split necks, etc.) if you manage to load some of it that could damage your gun or even you.

 

[Leo]

There was a bunch of .308 from south africa a few years ago that was the same. After struggling with it the brass had lots of early failures. The brass alloy was just too soft. Pitch that junk and stick with better brass.

 

[billybob44]

+10 With the crowd..
There is just too much good brass out there to get "hung up" on a bad head stamp...Bill..

 

[rvb]

thanks all, you've confirmed what I suspected, that I just need to toss it. I'm not into loading headaches. I just hadn't seen that before. I naturally just kept assuming I was doing something wrong, but no matter how much lube I applied it wouldn't go. I even checked it against a magnet to make sure it wasn't brass-coated steel or something.

I don't have heart burn tossing it. I have heartburn already wasting the time cleaning and inspecting it! ha.

This is all conjecture here, but is it possible that the cases are a shade too long and need a trim, or possibly the ammo as originally loaded was loaded from the factory a bit too hot and caused the web (area just forward of the extractor groove) to expand to the point it jams even with proper lube when run up into your die?
It's certainly not worth the aggravation of getting stuck, so you may have to just swallow the bitter pill of discarding all of that brass.
It's probably a bit alarmist to think so, but brass that is so hard to size could possibly have other failures (case head separation, blown primer pocket, split necks, etc.) if you manage to load some of it that could damage your gun or even you.

It was a bit hot from the factory. approx. 1/25 had flat primers. I did about 3 meticulously... they fit in the case gauge before sizing, so web was ok. They were tight going in the die from the beginning, not just when the web entered the die. expander ball seemed to be the biggest resistance. they grew about 0.02 in sizing! web are visually looked stretched after pulling it out of the die. trimming was part of my process... sizer in station 1 of the 550, trimmer in station 3.

based on possible stretching in the web area, and necks that didn't seem to want to conform, there's no way I would have shot it that way... not that it would have fit in the chambers anyway... I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was missing.

-rvb

 

[padawan]

Agree. Toss them. No headaches. Done.

And I thought I was a little coo coo by sorting my LC by year.

 

[trophyhunter]

Too much pressure on the table to trust those, I'd flatten them & recycle.

 

[sloughfoot]

Olympic is Greek. Greek ammo is weird. Shoot your Greek ammo and send the brass to the recycler. $.80 a pound is far better than trying to reload any Greek brass.

This has been my experience with anything Olympic. That and all the muzzle fireballs from factory ammo. I really hate that ammo....