I just thought I'd share my experience with my fellow shooters. I recently purchased a Weatherby Vanguard .308 and I'm in the midst of load development. I was finding a few rounds were difficult to feed and/or extract. I put it down to inconsistent case wall thickness so I ordered a .308 case neck reamer from Forster for my trimmer. For those who haven't used one, it takes the place of the pilot so you ream the inside of the neck and trim to length in the one operation. I have a whack of Remington Peters brass so that's mostly what I was loading. Well! Here's what I discovered. After running the brass through the decapping/resizing die I did the ream and trim to length. To my horror, I found that all my .308 projectiles would just drop right into the casing. I found out that I had to run the reamed out brass back through the resizing die to friction fit the projectiles. As I suspected, there is inconsistent case wall thickness since most of the brass will hold any of the bullets I'm working up loads for just with a friction fit. Some cases however still allowed the bullet to drop right in even after resizing. For those, I had to reset the seating die deeper to get a crimp to hold the bullet since if I didn't, the bullet would stick in the seating die not the case. Upshot of all this, I either have to stop reaming the necks or test each case prior to reloading and separate the ones that have to be crimped to hold the bullet in place. Depending on the results of the next range day, I'll make my final determination.
Neck Reaming
- Thread starter LawrenceN
- Start date
The problem with reaming the way you are doing it is that the reamer is cutting the ID of the neck without reference to neck thickness or neck concentricity.
If neck reaming is done with a die, the case is pressed into the die and then the reamer is turned in. The reamer is guided by the die and the ID of the neck is concentric with the OD.
Neck turning, with the cutter being guided by the pilot will produce uniform, concentric necks.
The necks must be sized, of course, to obtain the desired fit relative to the bullets.
If some of your bullets are being held by friction, and others by the crimp, you are not going to get uniformity.
If neck reaming is done with a die, the case is pressed into the die and then the reamer is turned in. The reamer is guided by the die and the ID of the neck is concentric with the OD.
Neck turning, with the cutter being guided by the pilot will produce uniform, concentric necks.
The necks must be sized, of course, to obtain the desired fit relative to the bullets.
If some of your bullets are being held by friction, and others by the crimp, you are not going to get uniformity.
You've discovered a technique that is poorly designed and has poor outcomes.
None of the big boys do it this way.
The big boys turn the necks to obtain a desired neck material thickness. Whether they remove material from the inside or outside doesn't really matter because, before loading the bullet, the utilize neck bushings (which make neck smaller to a certain neck OD) and/or mandrels (which make neck larger to a certain neck ID). In this way they obtain their desired neck wall thickness, plus have the amount of "neck tension" (OD of bullet minus ID of neck) they desire, which is generally something like 0.002". And they do not crimp.
None of the big boys do it this way.
The big boys turn the necks to obtain a desired neck material thickness. Whether they remove material from the inside or outside doesn't really matter because, before loading the bullet, the utilize neck bushings (which make neck smaller to a certain neck OD) and/or mandrels (which make neck larger to a certain neck ID). In this way they obtain their desired neck wall thickness, plus have the amount of "neck tension" (OD of bullet minus ID of neck) they desire, which is generally something like 0.002". And they do not crimp.
- Location
- Western Manitoba
My experience - perhaps 15 or 20 years ago, was with Forster "HOT" neck turner - a hand held thing that cut on the outside of the neck - I was thinking I would get so much improvement on target, if I had the necks all skimmed to be the same. In my store bought Model 70 338 Win Mag, I could not see a difference between 5 shot groups with or without neck skimming. Not saying that others do not see improvement, but I could not - so I gave it up as "busy work". I was not having any chambering issues.
You might want to take a case that fits tight - scribble it up with Jiffy Marker - to see where that marker gets rubbed off. Might be, but might not be, along the case neck?
I am not sure that I remember the instructions completely - but seems to me something about only setting it to do partially around, else most brass case necks get to be too thin - then need specialized reloading tools, after that.
You might want to take a case that fits tight - scribble it up with Jiffy Marker - to see where that marker gets rubbed off. Might be, but might not be, along the case neck?
I am not sure that I remember the instructions completely - but seems to me something about only setting it to do partially around, else most brass case necks get to be too thin - then need specialized reloading tools, after that.
Last edited:
Inside neck reaming is preformed with a fired case and then full length resized or shoulder bumped. After resizing, I outside neck turn my cased, usually removing .001 to .002" off the neck. Parts of the outside neck is removed and other areas remain the same; this shows that the wall thickness was not exact or concentric. This is my procedure of inside reaming and outside turning. Only one application is required.
So you removed material from the inside of a hole and expect it to be smaller? Now you need either a collet die or a bushing die to reduce the diameter of the outside to squeeze the inside smaller. In all honesty, unless you have a tight match chamber, reaming and outside neck turning has very little return as far as accuracy goes.
In my opinion the only way to correctly ream a neck is to have it supported on the outside in order to control the cut depth while reaming from the inside.
The RCBS neck ream dies that came with the appropriate reamer is the finest and most accurate way off reaming necks, the
results are always perfectly consistent and no donut.
BB
The RCBS neck ream dies that came with the appropriate reamer is the finest and most accurate way off reaming necks, the
results are always perfectly consistent and no donut.
BB
I agree to a certain point. However you can not make a silk purse out of a sows ear. A hunting rifle with a factory chamber and bulk brass will not turn into a benchrest rifle regardless of how much brass prep you do. You can spend all kinds of time at the loading bench doing all kinds of tasks that will give you zero return on your results on paper down range.
- Location
- Western Manitoba
I have previously read similar in a more pithy manner - "Holes on target do not lie" - so shoot a couple 5 shot groups at 100 yards or so. Then do the change / improvement - now repeat the groups - did they get better? In my case, they did not - with bulk brass and a factory hunting rifle - so I decided the holes on target were telling me that what I fussed about was just "busy work" for that outfit, and turned out I actually had better things to do with that time, that did make a difference.
To be fair to OP, I think his original concern was about a chambering difficulty, not an accuracy concern.
The problem I think is that you resized your cases before reaming. The Forster reamers are meant to be used on the fired case, before resizing.
I have the Forster trimmer and neck reamers, and use the neck reamers to remove the donut on fired, un-sized cases. I find it works remarkably well to remove the donut. That's all its used for. If there is no donut, the reamer often goes through without shaving any brass.
I was under the impression that the Forster neck reamers are not meant to be used to control neck thickness overall. For neck thickness as others have mentioned, neck turning tools are used on the outside of the neck, and the sized neck is supported internally with a snug fitting pilot or mandrel. Forster makes the outside neck turning tool for its the trimmer and all the pilots. I own the neck turner and have good success with it.
The Forster trimmer outside neck turning tool requires the neck to be sized first, and the pilot is then a snug fit supporting the case wall. The Forster neck turning tool is not to be used on an unsized neck because its then it would be too sloppy and unsupported by the pilot.
The Forster case length trimmer is also meant to be used on a sized neck with the same pilot, not with the neck reamer on the fired, un-sized case neck. This is because the un-sized case neck (when using the reamer) can be a variety of diameters and the reamer might not necessarily support any of the case neck wall.
So a handy memory tool for using the Forster tools is:
Reamer is for donuts and is done on fired, not sized case necks.
Trimmer and neck turner are used on sized cases with the supporting pilot.
Hope that helps.
- Location
- Western Manitoba
In support of what Post #13 says - from Forster web page about their case neck reaming tools: (I added bolding)
"Standard Neck Reamers are intended for use after the cases have been fired with a full load and before the neck or full-length sizing operation."
Fix link and go here to read it: ht tps://www.forsterproducts.com/product/standard-neck-reamers/
"Standard Neck Reamers are intended for use after the cases have been fired with a full load and before the neck or full-length sizing operation."
Fix link and go here to read it: ht tps://www.forsterproducts.com/product/standard-neck-reamers/
Sorry if I missed it in your post, but I hope you know that you’re supposed to ream fired cases BEFORE sizing the brass. If you size first, the bullet will just fall through, as you described. I have had great success with my Forster reamer pilot for 222. Knocks the donut out that forms near the shoulder.
