[El Chorizo]

I have some Federal (FC Headstamp) .223 cases that are once fired and they are well bellow the 1.75" "standard trim-to" length. Most of them are around 1.745" or even 1.74". Should I just trim them to 1.74"?

I would like them to be uniform length, but not sure if that's too short or not? Do you always trim to the 1.75" for .223?

 

[Trigger_Puller]

Yes, 1.75" is what I trim to.

Did you run them through a full-length sizing die before you measured them?

 

[El Chorizo]

Yes, I always run through a full length size before trimming. They are coming out about 1.743" - 1.748". I'm trimming to a compromise of 1.745"

I'm curious to know what these were before they were fired. I purchased them as once fired, so I'm thinking they could have been about 1.74" even.

 

[andrew21]

I have some unfired FC .223 "Power Shok" so I checked what length they are from the factory. I measured 10 to make sure I did'nt get an odd one and 7 were 1.736" and the other 3 were pretty close to that. So I would say you 1.74" brass is ok

 

[El Chorizo]

Wow, that's interesting. I may just go to 1.74", that way they would all be uniform. Some of them are coming in at 1.743", so I'll just probably trim them back to 1.74" even!

 

[gunner]

hey guys , i was curious about this some time ago . i didnt know the actual chamber dimentions of my gun until i purchased a sinclair dead neck length gauge ! now my loading book says trim to 1750 - 1760 max ! my remy 700 s/a 223 measures 1789 exactly , so i had some brass that id reloaded quite a few times (lapua) and id annealed them too and they had grown to 1762-1777 so i dicided to cut to 1765. think its worth mentioning that freshly annealed brass streaches a little bit quicker as its slightly softer ! try it if you can you just might even get tighter groups ....