Originally Posted By: A-dogThank you everyone for the help. It sounds like I just need to order a neck sizing die to do this the right way. This now brings up a whole new issue. From the research I have been doing, neck sizing dies use various bushings that you can swap out to achieve the desired neck size, or tension. Am I correct on this so far? Also, I have read about people shaving the inside and outside of the case neck to achieve various case neck dimensions. All this stuff is a bit beyond my abilities at the time. Can I neck size without doing all this fancy case prep? I always tumble, trim (if required) chamfer, and de-burr my brass as part of my normal case prep routine. Should I give up on trying to gain accuracy by neck sizing and simply stick to full length sizing?
Congratulations on going from the world of case filling up into world of true handloading. Inside/outside neck turning seek to make sure neck thickness is consistent and when sized down will give a consistent bullet neck tension as one side is not squeezed in more/less than the other and you get a better bullet release.
In the case of a standard neck chamber/factory/SAAMI'd rifle the turning may result in some slight improvement. It shines in tight necked chambers that you are literally fitting the necks too. These will have about 0.001 to 0.002 extra room in the neck for minimal expansion. A standard non-turned neck won’t even fit in the chamber on many of these.
Picking a bushing size is easy. Just load a bullet measure the neck and subtract 0.001 to 0.005 off that. The smaller the number you use the higher the tension. Point of no benefit is about 0.006 BTW. If you want to clean up the necks that is usually done by setting your turner up for a light cut. When run down to the shoulder it will show about 75% of the neck being turned with some low spots showing. That’s pretty mild. If you go full turn you decide on what thickness you want that will clean it ALL up. If you go that route you will need to adjust your bushing sizes as above.
Inside neck turning/reaming is not done much as it does allow for more issues in control IMHO. The necks have to be nice and even and here you are still dealing with some inconsistent thickness. The process is good for removing “donuts” but that’s a different issue for latter.
We neck size all the time without turning and by and large we do well down range with it. Many times you can prep brass until the cows come home but that won’t turn every barrel into BR quality sub-0.2 MOA groups. Be realistic of your gear and start slow. Easy fixes to make them shoot are deburr flash holes, weigh cases, use a light crimp that is not abused by the system as in more crimp on an AR and lighter on the bolt guns. I F/L and neck size all my AR’s stuff. I will N/S for my bolt guns having cleaned up the brass. I only neck turn when I have a very tight chamber, not unusual in the wildcats I play with or just want to play. Like all my gear I have power attachments to make it easier on my old arthritic hands and wrists. My Makita gets the call anytime I have to work on brass including trimming unless I use one or two of my dedicated power trimmers.
Greg
