Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I know theses two cal. Differ in pressure head spacing and the chamber throats but why do I have so much trouble pressing in a primer even though I chamfered the primer pockets? Do they have different size pockets so there are more than one size small rifle primers?
Any help appreciated!

The primer pockets should be the same size. There may be slight differences in each companies tolerances or the reamer may not quite remove all of the crimp. I have not noticed a difference in pressing in primers. You can always get a chucking reamer to uniform the pockets. A half thousandths can make all the difference.

I have a pocket cleaner and I ream a small chamfer but they seam to want to crush at starting to press them in, so I assumed the 5.56 used a different primer. So I'm sorting out the .223 from the 5.56 cases.
All my cases are one I picked up the shooting range because it looks like very few who shoot them reload because I've picked up hundreds of these cases.
I figured some day I would like to get a .223 rifle years ago so I collected the most prominent rifle round I found at the range and a couple years ago I bought a bolt action savage in .223 and that's my story.

Small rifle primers are supposed to range from 0.1745-0.1765" in diameter. The interference fit is about one to three ten thousandths of an inch.

You might need a primer pocket swager or a 0.1735" chucking reamer.

Small rifle primers are supposed to range from 0.1745-0.1765".

Or you can make a gauge if you have an electric drill and bolt with a smooth shank on it so you can turn it down to those dimensions and use a 223 case as a template.

Thank you I've got lake city and some other 5.56 they seem to run about .001 smaller in the primer pockets I'll look into that

Thanks ! The reamer worked!! Seeing almost all the cases I have picked up are 5.56, now I can load both5.56 not just .223, thanks again.