I have neck sized some 308 brass that was fired by my 308Win chambered rifle. The chamber has minimal excess headspace, as in less than a thou over the go gauge. The neck sizing was done with a Lee collet neck sizer. There is some resistance on closing the bolt. Nothing dramatic, but some added resistance. How much resistance is ok? Does the resistance indicate anything about the pressure of the load that was fired from the brass? Is some drag normal and to be expected for fire formed and neck sized brass?
neck sizing question - how much resistance is ok?
- Thread starter Grizzlypeg
- Start date
In my experience, neck sized brass will provide some resistance to closing the bolt, as there is no longer any excess headspace. Not sure if the fired load has anything to do with it, as the chamber will only allow the brass to get so big. I guess a HOT load would make the biggest brass, ensuring that the case expanded to the maximum size the chamber would allow. If the bolt closes completely than you are safe. If you feel that there is too much friction or if there are any markings on the primers after chambering, but before firing than I think you should pull the loads and full length size. Just my humble, slightly experienced opinion.
I'm going to test a few loads using neck only sized Winchester brass. I'll test all the brass in the chamber before I even prime and load it. I was curious if you ever get a sitatuion where neck sized brass closes just like full sized, with zero drag.
I thinh it would take a pretty light load to form brass that would give no resistance to bolt closing. I have not been reloading long but I always get some resistance. It varies from barely noticeable to very difficult to close the bolt. A few rounds were so tough that I ejected them for inspection without firing and found scarring on the head and primer. I didn't fire them, though I suspect they would have been safe unless the primer cup was thinned enough by the scraping to cause a rupture.
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There will be some resistance on neck sized brass. There will come a point after 3-5 loadings that you will have to FL resize to get the rounds to fit your chamber again. A good investment it a Redding body die, you can run your loaded rounds into them safely (they are made for this) and resize the body and bump the shoulder a couple thou. Or you could get a big tacicool bolt knob installed so you can really reef it down
