SmallCaliberCentral

a friend of mine told me that ar spent shells and spent shells from a bolt reload different can they be interchanged or do they all have to be resized thx.

jlnolly wrote:a friend of mine told me that ar spent shells and spent shells from a bolt reload different can they be interchanged or do they all have to be resized thx.

Anything not fired from your rifle will need to be fully resized if you want to insure they will chamber in your rifle. Cases from your rifle likely will work with just a neck sizing but, in a semi-auto like your AR full sizing is still the best way to go. Nothing is cut in stone in reloading though and a case from a rifle with a smaller chamber geometry should fit yours without sizing. The case neck will need sizing though to properly hold a bullet in place

jlnolly wrote:a friend of mine told me that ar spent shells and spent shells from a bolt reload different can they be interchanged or do they all have to be resized thx.

In most cases, if you want to use them in both types of actions, you need to full length resize them. For the AR is is good idea to use small base dies. If you use them in the same weapon as fired in, then you might get by with just a neck size. On the bolt, for sure, on the AR, possible. Make sense ?? Bill K

Thank you Joe and Bill

I will add that in 2 of my AR's with the NATO chamber, only Lee full length sizing dies are needed. The small base dies are USUALLY only required on something like an FL, or certain HK. They have the chamber scalloped-out for reliability in extreme conditions. With those chambers, at least potentially, the brass gets expanded to large.

My Remington R-15 in .223 does just fine with RCBS "normal-sized" dies, the brass for my R-15 30 AR is sized using standard Redding dies. Both rifles work flawlessly.

I have a bushmaster AR in 204. and rcbs dies and it has been a little tempormental with brass that has been fired i fullength resize and somtimes the first shell will misfire if the first one does not misfire all is good, its a little inconsistant though maybe a small base die is the way to go . i have had two clicks with no bang on coyotes only one let me rechamber another round ?