I'll admit it-I messed up

[Mobuck]

To clarify, this happened years ago but has become apparent during some storage restructuring that I've been doing lately.
Several years back brass was relatively cheap and I was processing and reloading quite a lot of .223. Somewhere in all this processing, I had a couple of issues that didn't come to light right away. Over the past week I've been opening ammo cans and checking the condition of the ammo stored inside and I discovered my decade old mistake(s).
I remember discovering that my .223 sizing die had literally worn out and was replaced but I thought I went back and re-re-sized all that questionable brass--wrong. I've found an unknown amount of loaded brass that was not properly sized and doesn't chamber in some of the AR's. That, I can fix w/o too much trouble.
The other issue is one I'm sort of at a loss for a simple fix. Sometime during one of the marathon loading runs on my cobbled up semi-progressive press, the crimp die had shifted. The result was/is an almost imperceptible shoulder bulge that slipped past my "quality control" checks. Several hundred rounds are affected and the die I'm unsure if a regular seater die will pinch that shoulder bump back in place.
Does anyone know if there's some sort of "profile" .223 die that performs a bit of "sizing" during the seat/crimp step.

 

[gunzo]

I've gotten bulges as well. Called a buddy that is everything AR, & he has had the same issues at times. All cases need to be the same length or the crimp set to the longest case you have, silly I know.

And the Lee factory crimp die helps tremendously. It's not as particular about length variations. This is used after bullet seating & adds another step, but ended my bulges.

 

[mikld]

Off hand I think I would check as many as I could with a cartridge gauge (personally I don't care for case gauges and would rather use the gun's barrel). Set aside the "bad" rounds that won't plunk and try full length sizing. May work but also check neck tension. Worst scenario, pull, resize (remove decapping stem), recharge, reseat bullets...

BTW: BTDT with my 30-06 Garand...

 

[Enigma]

If I understand you correctly, you have a slight bulge at the junction of the case shoulder and body. You might try a Redding Body Die, and see if that will correct your problem without inducing others. Otherwise, you may have to break out your eraser (bullet puller), and start over.

 

[gunzo]

And if I've misunderstood & you want to correct what you have, Enigma nailed it on both counts.

 

[Mobuck]

I've got a puller ordered(can't find my old one). The best way to fix is pull, resize, reload.
My plan goes like this: I've already run 100 sized and primed cases through the small base sizer just to make sure I'm not replaying the same error. When the puller arrives, I'll set up 2 presses side by side so I can pull a bullet, dump powder into freshly sized primed case, and reseat the bullet in one 3 step operation. With all the junk that's managed to concentrate itself on my reloading bench, 100 cases is a nice number to work with. Then I'll re-re-size the 100 cases from which I just pulled bullets and run them in the tumbler for a while before performing the powder/bullet shuffle on them.
I figure about a week of cold, windy, snowy weather should get the job done.
Darn, there goes watching 21 episodes of Laramie and 35 of The Virginian plus untold Tales of Wells Fargo.

 

[mikld]

I'll set up 2 presses side by side so I can pull a bullet, dump powder into freshly sized primed case, and reseat the bullet in one 3 step operation.

Now, that's a plan! I would probably not have thought that far and just pulled the bullets, put then in one pile, dumped the powder in a container and started all over again... :roll:

 

[Mobuck]

The job is bigger than I originally thought. I've been going through buckets of sized and primed cases and finding small percentages that won't chamber in some of the AR's. Since I have nothing better to do, I'm running EVERYTHING through a small base sizer. Fortunately, I have both .223 and 6x45mm SB sizer dies. With the decap/expander rod removed from the 6x45mm die it works perfectly on primed brass since the bulges are just ahead of the rim.

 

[Mobuck]

It's working. Bullet puller showed up yesterday but I had to dig through a couple of boxes of spare die parts to find the collet crimp die I wanted and then fabri-cobble an extension for one of the presses. Turns out I need 3 presses mounted in sequence to utilize the puller, seater, and separate collet crimp die. Still better than dumping powder into a container and re-charging.
I'd figured on spending the day tomorrow plodding along with this project but Son has a repair job on his pickup and he indicated he would not refuse assistance if I showed up. I've done several of the same fixes so at minimum, I can lend some guidance.

 

[blammer]

Interesting post. Just a thought: you've obviously got a few presses and room to use them all at once. For those like me who don't, the purchase of some kind of turret press would be ideal for this. I like my Lee 4-hole as I can manually shift it for case like this or run it 'automated'.

 

[Mobuck]

I'm using a couple of LEE Challenger "O" presses and a LEE open "C" press for this project. With room to move the cases from shell holder to shell holder, it takes about 30" of bench front but would be workable in even less space if using a turret press.
My initial concern about having to pull literally thousands of bullets may have been overestimated. I'm going to have to handle a lot of rounds but not all will require a full teardown process. So far about 500 met the full pull down test.

 

[Mobuck]

I'm pretty well finished with the do-over. While I can't recommend what I've done, I can say that I was successful.
The cases with the bulged shoulder went through a .223 small base sizer with the decap pin removed and came out perfect. Turned out to be only a couple hundred from one reloading run.
I ran approximately 7,000 primed .223 cases through a small base 6x45 sizer die w/o incident. Why the 6x45? I already had the 6x45 die set (actually have 2 since one showed up on ebay a year ago and no one seemed to want to bid on it). I only needed to size a tiny portion of the case just ahead of the rim. The 6x45 SB did this w/o touching the neck of the .223 case. Easier on the brass less strain on me.