223 - to lube the neck for bullet placement or not

[lpmartineau]

hi there folks,

I been reading online a lot lately and it seems I can't find a good answer on lubing the inside of the neck prior to loading the bullet with the press.

I have done it and I have skipped it but this year I want to take my accuracy up a notch and want to make sure I am doing everything that I can to help with this.

what do you all think?

thanks.

Luc

 

[Fassteel]

My vote is no neck lube. You want to take your accuracy up a notch, weigh your cases, turn your necks,use match primers. FS

 

[misfits]

i dont lube when i put the bullet in for my .223 rounds and i'm getting good groupings

 

[lpmartineau]

My vote is no neck lube. You want to take your accuracy up a notch, weigh your cases, turn your necks,use match primers. FS

Thanks FS.

when you say Weight the brass I am assuming then take 5 identical weights for a 5 shot group?

I am not totally new to reloading but I am still learning A LOT so thank you for the info!

as for Neck Turning I just read up on that and it sounds like a great idea, I will look into equipment and try it out soon.

Luc

 

[Fassteel]

Thanks FS.

when you say Weight the brass I am assuming then take 5 identical weights for a 5 shot group?

I am not totally new to reloading but I am still learning A LOT so thank you for the info!

as for Neck Turning I just read up on that and it sounds like a great idea, I will look into equipment and try it out soon.

Luc

L

Check out the K&N web site, they make some good neck turning gear, and the Sinclairs International web site. FS

 

[ykkid]

No. Do not lube the inside of your case neck before seating the bullet. If you do lube the inside of the case neck prior to neck re-sizing, remove the lube before seating the bullet. An essential element of an accurate load is consistent tension, or resistance of the seated bullet to start moving down the barrel as the cartidge is fired. Neck turning, as some recommend here, is intended to minimize the inconsistencies of such tension caused by inconsistent neck thicknesses, and therefore neck tension. Some manually, irregularily applied lubrication would defeat this goal.

The effect of inconsistent neck tension, such as would be created by inconsistent lubrication, is to cause your powder to burn at different rates in each cartridge, since the starting pressure curve would vary, depending upon how much, and how well distributed, lubrication was present. Different pressure curves, different velocities, different barrel harmonics, meaning different points of impact on target.

Primer pocket uniforming, flash hole uniforming, and perhaps case neck turning, in that order, as well as segregating cases by lot number, weight, and number of reloads are all important case considerations. Experiments with seating depth, crimping, as well as the normal powder selection/charge weight experimentation, and the ever fascinating bullet selection, will drive a normal person to distraction in pursuit of the perfect load.

 

[maynard]

While the advise above is all good there is a point where some of it is a waste of time. Unless you have a tight neck chamber, neck turning for a factory chamber will not turn a 1 moa rifle into a 1/4 moa rifle.
I shoot target rifle out to 1000 yards and have found the even cleaning primer pockets (unless they are really bad) to be another great way to waste time. It might be a good idea for short range benchrest but for my type if shooting I can't see any difference.

I do weight sort my brass to within 1 gr but it may be more of a "feel good" excercise than anything else. The only way to truely sort brass is by volume but who has time for that?

Neck tension is important so a good set of bushing dies helps achieve this. Consistant, straight bullet seating also is a must for accurate ammo.

Powder charge weight is a key to accurate ammo. Some people will tell you that +/-.1 grain won't make much difference but I am a little more anal about it than that. I have an Accu-lab scale that measures .02 grains.

 

[243jimb]

Maynard's advice is spot on, I could have written that reply myself. I wish that I'd have known all this a few years ago, I could have saved myself a lot of money and even more time.
Jim.

 

[ykkid]

Yeah, I didn't say you had to do all those things, but some folks do. Some folks don't. Probably, they all have some positive effect on accuracy, but in any one gun, for any one load, it may not be discernable until, perhaps, at the end of a benchrest season, the season aggregate is slightly smaller. And that assumes of course one was shooting consistently, did the same matches, and the weather was not unusually unseasonable for many of those matches.

But they are good ways to twiddle away time when one can't shoot, and they don't cost much!

 

[sunray]

Your case mouths should be chamfered and deburred. No need to lube for bullet seating.
"...accuracy up a notch..." Meticulous loading techniques(weighing each powder charge and having the cases all the same length, but not necessarily the same weight.) and working up a load with match grade bullet$ will do that. Won't make a lick of difference if your barrel/rifle isn't up to it though.
A lot depends on what kind of shooting you're doing.

 

[lpmartineau]

thanks everyone for the advice.

I started weighing my brass and grouping them together.

I also started to weight each and every powder charge, man what a chore but goes to show you how inaccurate a cheap powder dispenser can be

the chamfer an deburr I do no matter what, to each case as well as a trim (before the chamfering/deburring)

now I need to get out to the range and do some testing.

 

[carbonrod]

I shoot target rifle out to 1000 yards and have found the even cleaning primer pockets (unless they are really bad) to be another great way to waste time. It might be a good idea for short range benchrest but for my type if shooting I can't see any difference.

Great advice Maynard. Thanks. There are so many things one can do to brass that when I read about some bench processes, I start wondering if it would be better to just start with brass rod, and a mill.

Neck tension is important so a good set of bushing dies helps achieve this. Consistant, straight bullet seating also is a must for accurate ammo.

I hear this often, and use bushing dies(redding) myself on some rifles, as I think it is worth it, but talk of neck tension always has me wondering if anyone measures and sorts by neck tension.

Powder charge weight is a key to accurate ammo. Some people will tell you that +/-.1 grain won't make much difference but I am a little more anal about it than that. I have an Accu-lab scale that measures .02 grains.

Which model do you use(vic-123??), and how long have you had it? I have looked at the 123 a couple of times. Seems about right to measure to the granule of most powders I use.