Neck Resizing for AR-15 Reloading

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 26 Jan 2002 12:36:08 GMT

I started reloading for my Colt Match Competition HBAR .223 semi-auto rifle very soon after I got it. My rifle cartridge reloading consists of the following steps (plus some occasional additional case conditioning):

Cleaning and inspecting the case. Many people use a tumbler to do the cleaning. I don't have one yet, so I just polish it with a rag. Inspection is important since you want to detect damaged or worn-out cases before they separate when fired.
Depriming and resizing. This is usually done with a single die. The die has a pin in the center that pushes out the old spent primer. The outside of the die squeezes the case back to its normal size (it expands when fired) and then the rod on which the pin is mounted expands the neck to the right size to hold a bullet.
Priming. I usually clean out the primer pocket before inserting the new primer. I use a Lee Auto-Prime to do my priming. It has worked well for me on both .30/06 Springfield and .223 Reminton cases. Some folks use an attachment to their loading press to do their priming.
Powder charging. Powder must be carefully measured before being poured in the case. I use a Lee Perfect Powder Measure to measure powder by volume, calibrating the volume by weight for each reloading session and checking the weight every 10 cases or so. Real purists use the volume measure to get slightly less than the desired weight, and then use a powder dribbler to add single grains of powder to the scale until the exact weight is acquired for each charge.
Bullet seating. Another die pushes the bullet into the case neck. It is important to carefully measure the overall length (OAL) of the resulting cartridge. If it's too long, it won't fit in the rifle's magazine or may not go all the way into the chamber. If it's too short, the pressure may become dangerously high during firing. A dial caliper is a worthwhile investment for this purpose. I have two kinds of bullet seating dies for .223 Remington. A crimping die that seats the bullet and optionally crimps it in place, and a dead-length seating die. I prefer the latter since it appears to result in more consistent overall length. Also, the crimping die may not be used for crimping unless the bullet has a cannelure (crimping groove).
Factory crimp. This step is optional. If you're loading for target shooting in a bolt-action rifle, you don't need to crimp. If you're using your ammunition for hunting or in an auto-loading rifle (like an AR-15), then you should crimp. As I said in the paragraph above, you can couple crimping with bullet seating, but I prefer to use the Lee Factory Crimp die, since it does a better job and can crimp a bullet with no cannelure.

Here are a couple of pictures of a twice-fired case, a bullet, a primer, the boxes in which the bullet and primer were shipped, and a quarter as a size reference. As you can see, I'm using Winchester primers and Speer 52 grain Hollow Point Boat Tail (HPBT) bullets. This is a Winchester case that I bought new.

And now for the point of this article. There are (at least) two types of case resizing: full-length resizing and neck resizing. A brand new case doesn't need to be resized. A case that's been fired in a different rifle than the one you intend to use for your reload needs to be full-length resized or it might not fit in your chamber. Full length resizing dies usually require that the case be lubricated before it is resized. I hate case lubing. The Lee Collet neck-resizing die (or another carbide die) does not require lubrication. Also, cases last longer if you neck resize instead of full-length resize, up to 10 times longer according to one of my reloading books. I asked a few people about neck resizing AR-223 loads. They all told me that it wouldn't work. Either the case wouldn't fit in the chamber or it would fail to come out of the chamber when fired. Noone I talked to seemed to be speaking from personal experience, however, so I decided to try it and see what happens. I loaded twenty once-fired cases using my Lee Collet die to resize only the necks. I fired them from two 10-round magazines. All twenty loaded properly. All twenty ejected properly.

Conclusion: so far, neck resizing works for me in my AR-15. Your results may vary, and it's entirely your responsibility if you try it, but I now consider the necessity to full-length resize AR-15 cases to be an urban legend.

But beware, responders to this question at ar15.com, Neck Sizing only in Autoloaders, strongly warn against doing this.

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Comments (3):

Reloading

Submitted by AR-15 Eric on Wed, 06 May 2009 16:15:24 GMT

I also reload .223, but I've never neck sized, only full length sized so far. It's hard to figure out who to beleive who's right because some people say it works, some say it doesn't. But in your practice, it seems to have worked, so whatever works I guess. I think I'll try out neck sizing soon; component prices are shooting through the roof. BTW: get a tumbler ;) Here's my reloading process:

Reloading .223 for AR-15

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Got the tumbler

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 06 May 2009 19:52:04 GMT

Got the tumbler, quite a while back (article is over 7 years old). I've never delubed any of my reloads. But then, I use Lee's water-based lube, so maybe that's why I don't need to. I haven't loaded .223 in a long time. Wolf loaded rounds were cheaper than bullet, powder, and primer last time I checked. That may no longer be the case, what with the huge ammo price increases. It won't shoot 1 MOA, like my reloads will, but it works.

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The short answer is "Yes",

Submitted by Greg on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:55:33 GMT

The short answer is "Yes", with a "sometimes" tacked on to that. If you're using previously-fired brass, especially military 5.56, which was fired in another rifle, you'll have to full-length resize or your rounds won't chamber (or the bolt won't lock) completely and will be a pain to extract.

Using brass you've fired yourself, sometimes you can get away with neck-sizing it. Try neck-sizing, then load up 2 or 3 dummy rounds (no primer or powder) and see if they'll chamber, extract and eject OK. Trust me, it's much better than loading up 100 and then finding out the hard way.

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