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Hornady .223 brass.
Over the course of the last year I saved up 700 Hornady 223 cases. 500 were from Superformance factory ammo all once fired in my T3 Tactical. The other 200 were economy packs of Hornady 223 with 50 rounds
of 55 grn. soft points all fired in my same rifle. The superformance are from only two different lot numbers.Whilst reloading I have found as many as 10 out of 50 with primer pockets so tight I cannot seat a BR4 small
rifle primer with my Lee hand held priming tool. This is a 20 percent failure. I cleaned each pocket with 5 twists of the lee primer pocket cleaner, I scotchbrited each case by hand with care and am stumped.40 out of the last 50 seated easily. The other 10 were so tight I could have broken the arm on my priming tool if I was silly enough to keep forcing. So….. doing the math I've potentially 140 cases out of the 700 I have that will be to tight to prime.
I specifically chose to buy Hornady factory ammo to save the brass for reloading precision rifle ammo.
I can't afford or find Lapua or Nosler in my area and Hornady from only two different lots seemed a good bet. I've managed to develop a load that put my first 3 shots through the same hole at 100 yards but I could see it happening with 18x on my scope, got excited, pulled the 4th 1/4 inch and the fifth was touching the fourth. This was with Hornady 75 grain BTHP on top of BR4s and 24.8 grains of Varget seated to mag length. OAL measures from 2.280 to 2.285.I am not complaining about the results of the loads I've made when I could seat the primers, but is 10 out of fifty not a wee bit odd? I've reloaded just under 200 of the 700 cases I've saved and found 16 with tight primer pockets so far.
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