Pressure sign or continue?

[Noreaster]

I have been lucky enough that my peak accuracy loads have never shown signs of pressure.
Baking up some plinking rounds and my starting load is making the primers look a little flat. Would you stop or continue?

Fed case, cci 400, 22.2 V V N140, 77gr nosler custom. Next load is 22.5

 

[Noreaster]

Ps. I was expecting to get to or close to 24.0 as these as said to be similar to smk

 

[peterk123]

Curious to see the comments. My 357 mag shells look the same and I have shot over a thousand rounds of it. I remember researching it because I too was concerned and I concluded it was fine.

 

[PatMcD]

Keep going till you pop a primer then back off half a grain.

I'm not kidding.

 

[mac1911]

Fwiw: Nosler data for 5.56 , 77gn CCs @ 2.260" coal. N140 max 23.5 gn
VV load data pushes it a bit more....

 

[EddieCoyle]

They don't look that flat.

Excessive headspace will flatten a primer even without excessive pressure. How far are you pushing the shoulder back when compared to a fired case from the same rifle?

 

[mac1911]

Can you get enough "known " powder for 223 in a case even compressed to get to extreme pressures?
Im not talking jamming the fastestest pistol powder in there.
The "popular" 223/556 powders seem to be very forgiving.

OP you dont even have ejector swipes on that brass....

 

[paracarry]

I was testing loads yesterday for my .223 bolt gun, settled on 24.5gr. Varget with 90 gr Berger's, got the velocity I was looking for and it grouped the best. 24.0 gr of IMR 8208 was blowing primers out of the case. Now i just have to see how that combination works at 600 yards. In regards to the pictures you posted they look fine to me.

 

[alx]

I have been lucky enough that my peak accuracy loads have never shown signs of pressure.
Baking up some plinking rounds and my starting load is making the primers look a little flat. Would you stop or continue?

Fed case, cci 400, 22.2 V V N140, 77gr nosler custom. Next load is 22.5

View attachment 483267

In my book those are about as far I would push it...