Reloading .223/5.56mm

[bert304]

Is it worth reloading the .223/5.56mm ? I have not seen any bullets at a low enough cost to beat the price of a box of black hills reloads. Where can I find bullets at a low cost?

[Dave D.]

Is it worth reloading the .223/5.56mm ? I have not seen any bullets at a low enough cost to beat the price of a box of black hills reloads. Where can I find bullets at a low cost?

I've been reloading .223 Rem for target shooting with Hornady 55 grain FMJBTs,

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpag...907&t=11082005

which gives me a total cost per round of around 18 cents depending how many times I can re-use the brass.

[Flash3x]

Pat's Reloading has M196 55gr. tracers for $21.95 per 500, $35 per 1000, $149 per 5000 with ammo can, $199 per 7800. Of course with the tracers you have to pay the hazmat charge for shipping. River Valley Ordinance has M855's without pullmarks for $40 per 1000. Bartlett has Sierra 55gr. Varminters for $12 per 100, $55 per 500, or $100 per 1000. Widener's has some too but the prices are a little higher on the mil-spec bullets.

The pulled bullets are the cheapest going and they are just fine for plinking.

[XD45]

you can get 22cal bullets cheap, look at midway.

[pstew]

If you are just blasting, then shoot wolf. If you want to go for accuracy, then reloading is the way to go.

[bert304]

I only recently purchased the rifle which is an AR-15. Right know I have been getting use to it and with work I did not have a lot of time to shoot. Now I am layed off for the next few months I figure I can get back in to shooting. I will look at midway and the others.

what are the loads that you are using? I looked in my Hornady book and they show 68 grain bullets and higher. I have been shooting 55 grain bullets.

[DieselPower]

Depends, what is your twist rate on the barrel?

[Dave D.]

I looked in my Hornady book and they show 68 grain bullets and higher. I have been shooting 55 grain bullets.

The Hornady book has two sections on the 223 Remington; sounds to me like you're looking in the "223 Remington Service Rifle Data" section, which lists 68 and 75 grain bullets. Try looking in the "223 Remington" section a few pages before that, it covers bullets from 40 grains on up to 60.

I've no idea why Hornady organized their .223 Remington data that way. Maybe someone with more experience can explain?

[bert304]

The rate of twist is 1/9. I just wanted to see what powder everyone else is using or trying. I am not sure what powders work the best in the .223/5.56mm case.

[Dave D.]

The rate of twist is 1/9. I just wanted to see what powder everyone else is using or trying. I am not sure what powders work the best in the .223/5.56mm case.

So far I've only been reloading the .223 for my Savage 10FP bolt-action rifle, using Hodgdon Benchmark; I haven't started experimenting with loads for my AR-15 yet. From what I've read it's not quite as straightforward as loading for bolt-action because powder burn rate is more important; not only do you need to keep from overpressuring the chamber while achieving the ballistics you want, you also need a pressure profile that will cycle the action properly.

The Sierra reloading manual has a section on reloading for semi-auto service rifles and goes into great detail. They make it sound like rocket science, and I'm not sure it's as difficult as they make it out to be; but there's evidently a little more to it than with a bolt-action rifle.

At any rate, from reading around I've gathered that Hodgdon BL-C(2) and Varget are both used a lot in reloading for the AR-15. Benchmark doesn't seem to be used as much; it's a faster-burning powder than the other two, and that may cause problems with cycling.