Watch that .223 Range Pickup Brass

[BarryinIN]

In yesterday's 3-gun match, our RO was struggling with sticking cases in his AR. He is a new reloader, which caused him and the rest of us to suspect his loading procedures.

That turned out to be right, but not in the way we thought.

Looking at his unfired ammo for obvious defects, the most apparent was a slight wrinkle (for lack of a better term) in the shoulder area of some. He said he had gauged them all, not noticed the wrinkles, and they dropped in just fine. I can believe that, since they seemed to chamber in his rifle just fine.

Naturally, eight of us had eight different opinions over the cause of the wrinkle. All centered on loading errors.

Finally, someone tipped a case over and looked at the headstamp. There was the answer:

"HORNADY .204 RUGER"

Even then, some thought that shouldn't cause the trouble since the .204 was .223-based. Something didn't sound right with that, so I checked on my suspicion. Sure enough, the .204 is based on the 1.840" long .222 Remington Magnum case, and not the 1.760" .223 Remington case.

He was loading from brass he had been picking up for years, and couldn't begin to guess where he got those. Further checking revealed he had 5% or more .204 cases in his .223 ammo.

I'm guessing we all watch this with other calibers. I almost expect to find .270 cases sneaking in among .30-06. Maybe even .280 Rem.

I watch for .243 in .308 brass. I've found them in new brass several times. A regular shooting buddy insists on bringing his 7mm-08 match rifle out with our .308s, and that keeps us on our toes.

When I've had magnums, I couldn't tell if the case I saw on the ground was a 7mm Rem Mag, .300 Win, etc.

I honestly haven't given much thought to finding anything mixed with .223 because the rest of that family has mostly died off. I haven't picked up a .222 case in 25 years, and never any of the rest.

The .204 never occurred to me.

Just sayin': You might want to watch for that in the future

[xtell]

BarryinIN,

Good info. I have had similar problems with pick up range brass in 9mm. I shoot 9mm Parabellum, but over the years have occasionally found Makarov, 9x21 and 9mm Browning brass mixed in.

xtell