So if I did it over again I'd just buy regular brass, but I have 400 once-fired Speer brass from shooting 223 Gold Dots that are cleaned and ready to load. I recently shot some lower power test loads with some 75gr Midsouth black tip and one of them look promising so I'm planning to load up a higher ladder and see where the pressure comes in and what velocity it'll give me. The test groups showed absolutely zero marks of any kind on the brass, they look as clean as they came out of the tumbler. I'm used to my 6 ARC with Hornady brass and seems if I look at it wrong it has extractor marks and ejector marks. This got me to thinking maybe the nickel plating is hiding the normal pressure signs I know to look for. Since I'm still relatively new to reloading I figured I should slow down and gather more info before going in. Anybody know if the nickel brass hides pressure signs, and if so if there's anything reliable I can look for before blowing my rifle to smithereens? This is a gas gun AR so no bolt lift to feel. Primers are AR primers which I understand to be a little "harder" than regular so primer craters and flattening may even be less noticeable. Since there's no book data for these Midsouth 75's I can't just load middle book data and call it good so now I'm questioning all my life decisions.
