Hornady Powder Cop Die… for .223 Rem?

/ hsoi

I’ve been too busy with other things to spend time at the reloading bench. But the other night I had a little time so I thought I’d switch the powder drop over from the pistol to the rifle rotor and get it adjusted. With that done, next station is the powder cop die.

Uh… the end of the die rod doesn’t fit into the mouth of a .223 Rem case.

Not good.

But the fix is simple!

Turn it over.

You can see in the above picture that on the left you have a small end, 0.1855″ in diameter. On the right, the larger end, .2485″ diameter. Chances are when you bought your powder cop die, it was installed with the large end down, inside the die, and the small end stuck up and out for you to measure your powder.

Remove the little white rubber ring on the rod. The rod should then fall free of the die body. Flip the rod over, putting the little rubber ring all the way up towards the larger end, then put the rod back into the die flipped around. That’s it! Simple.

I’m not sure if this is any sort of Hornady-blessed way to do things. When I ran into the problem last night I hit Google first to see if there was a whole other die to handle smaller calibers; no, Hornady only sells the one. So further searching turned up this “flip it over” solution. Again, not sure if it’s Hornady-blessed, but others report it works fine. I guess I’ll find out eventually.

3 thoughts on “Hornady Powder Cop Die… for .223 Rem?”

  2. I have one that I would like to use with .223 rounds. Mine just doesn’t seem to work well. I set it up with a round with a correct load, but when I run a round through it, it always rides 1/4 to 1/8 inch above the powder. I think it catches on the side of the shell. Do you have the same problems?

    • Haven’t reloaded any .223 in ages, and I just don’t remember…. but I reckon I might recall that and don’t. So… I guess I didn’t have the problem?

      I would look to ensure the rod is not bent, nor any burrs or other things on the die that could be hanging it up.

      If all else fails, give Hornady a call. Any time I’ve called them they’ve always been very friendly and helpful towards troubleshooting things.

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