Originally Posted by
versifier
Welcome to The Guide.
You need to begin with three current manuals. Why three? Every lab uses different components and test firearms and results vary between them. Take the combination you suggested: the only common component from manual to manual is the powder. Each lab will be using a different brand of the same weight bullet, a different brand of case, and a different primer. So you open up all three and see what they say. All three may be in close agreement, but what if they are not? (Not even considering the occasional transcription error in the printed charge tables.) Sometimes one set of numbers differs from the other two by quite a lot. Then you can safely rely on the other two for a good place to begin. What if you only had one manual and it was the one with the suspect data but because you only had that one you did not realize it? Three or more CURRENT manuals are the best deal on life insurance you will ever find. Never even consider any data from any source without checking it in all of your manuals. And update them as new editions are published. Components change over time, new ones appear on the market.
Each manual will explain the loading process in a slightly different way. Read them all, even if you are sure you understood the first one. The differences in techniques will make you think and generate some good questions. Lyman, Sierra, Lee, Speer, Nosler (and even Hornady) all have good comprehensive manuals. Some have data mostly for their own bullets though most of it is bullet weight, not brand, specific and can be safely applied to other brands of the same weight. Brand specific data is helpful for determining the OAL to begin with for a specific specialty bullet, like for instance Sierra's MatchKing target bullets. RCBS and Sierra have some great reloading videos which I have watched that will be a big help, too.
It is always easiest to learn hands-on from someone who knows, but that may not be an option for you where you are. It wasn't for me and I had to learn it all on my own from books with the internet twenty years in the future. These days I give loading courses here, but it is a bit of a drive to NH from WA....
There is no real difference between most .223 and 5.56 brass, regardless of its headstamp. The caution about mil brass applies primarily to .308 and .30-06 brass, but you do on rare occasions get some foreign .223/5.56 brass that is a bit thicker and some that is thinner. A smart reloader (i.e. one that lives long enough to learn and pass on the skill) checks the weights of several cases in a lot to double check regardless of its source. Any time you are unsure about ANYTHING, ASK and MEASURE until you are sure and confident about what you are doing. Clearly you have learned this lesson, but it is one we must keep reminding ourselves of constantly for all the years ahead of stuffing cases. We only get one big mistake. The idea is NOT TO MAKE IT.
The real difference between .223 and 5.56 is in the loads and the chambers. Back in the day all .223's and their military equivalent used a 55gr bullet at a standard Cartridge Over-All Length (aka COAL or OAL). In civilian life the .223 was and is mostly a varmint round, so nothing there really changed. However, the 5.56 (new name for the mil round when it began to be adopted first by NATO allies then by other countries) was deemed to be underpowered with the 55gr bullet and the bullet's weight was increased by around 15grs to better put down the larger two-legged varmints. When they did this, due to the small capacity of the case they had two choices: They could either keep the same OAL and sacrifice powder capacity and velocity, or increase the OAL and not sacrifice any power. They went with the second option. This meant increasing the leade (throat, or bullet jump) of the military chambers. The potential problem arose when one wanted to fire a 5.56 mil round with those new longer bullets in a civilian .223 chamber. Most .223 chambers were generous enough to cause no troubles, but there were (and are) a few rifles out there with very short throats and when you cram that longer and heavier bullet right into the lands and pull the trigger it creates a pressure spike. How big a spike depends on the actual dimensional measurements of both the round and the chamber and how they compare to each other. Mostly it's a non-issue as pretty much all commercial .223 chambers are now cut with enough room in them for liability concerns, but it's always a smart idea to check the chamber of any .223/5.56 regardless of what is stamped onto the barrel, especially the older ones. You do this by making a dummy round from a full length sized case with no primer in it. Seat a 55gr bullet way out too long and ease it into the chamber until it stops. Remove it then seat it a hair deeper and keep doing this until the action closes properly. Then compare the length at that point to the standard. It will be instantly apparent what kind of chamber you have to work with.
It is fair to note that in all my years of loading I have only come upon one .223 with a chamber that was too short for a modern mil round, out of hundreds that have come through my hands. Shooter next to me at the range says: "Hmmm. The action won't close on these #&@$ing cheap mil rounds. WTF?" He had an older AR, but if he'd had a bolt action with its greater mechanical advantage in chambering he probably would have had a nasty accident. And I was more than close enough to have been in shrapnel range. I checked the ammo and the rifle and figured it out for him, but I was really surprised. One of the other shooters there who had a bunch of 55gr surp ammo simply traded with him and everybody was happy. And they left all of their brass for me, so I was happy too.
Rookie reloader looking guidance and advice
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