Neck turning, is it worth it?

[mustang979]

So I'm considering neck turning to try to squeeze more accuracy out of my reloads. I'm a little concerned about the amount of work it'll take to neck turn my ~1400 rounds (mix of 308, 223, 300wm and 338lm). What's the general consensus on neck turning? Are the benefits worth the pain? If I go down that rabbit hole, what setups do people recommend that has good accuracy while not taking too much time.

 

[twosmokinspades]

For the most part time on the reloading bench pays dividends on the range. Neck turning in my opinion depends on the quality of the brass and your chamber. I have a 308 where I neck turned and really saw little difference but for the 6 creedmoor neck turning makes a difference

 

[JMedical]

Depends on your rifle chamber, if you dont have a tight chamber you wont see as mich Benefit. If you do it do not cheap out and get a good powered set up. 21st century is what I run and I can do 200+ cases an hour.

 

[rick357]

+1 on the 21st century IF you are doing neck sizing with bushings. If you are using the Lee collet die to size the neck, you don't need to turn the neck.

 

[dero338]

If you want to use a bushing die without expander ball, it resize the outside of the neck and all high spots get inside the neck. Then you HAVE to turn your necks. If you use a lee collet die, forget about it. Run your actual amo on concentricity gage and if its right and shoot good, why change anything?

 

[maynard]

If you have a tight necked chamber you need to neck turn. You would be better off buying quality brass and sorting your brass by weight or by volume.

 

[bearhunter]

Unless your rifles are MATCH rifles with MATCH chambers you would be wasting a lot of your time.

It's not very often an off the shelf rifle will have chambers tight enough to warrant turning down the necks. Truth be told, it may even be detrimental.

There are two main reasons for neck turning. One is to uniform neck tensions on the bullet between cases. The second reason is to size the neck to your chamber and hopefully align the bullet perfectly with the leade.

Tolerances on off the shelf rifles are mostly much tighter than they used to be now that CNC machinery and new hammer forging techniques are being used. Some of your rifles MIGHT benefit from the procedure. Most likely not.

I've seen people that were disappointed when they meticulously turn down a hundred necks, only to find it was all for naught.

If your rifles have a substantial amount of rounds through them even less positive results can be expected.

Still, if you're just looking to experiment, go for it. If it works, it's like winning the lottery.

You will also have to get a set of dies to size down the necks to work with your expander ball. Some Match dies have special inserts for this purpose.


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[sharp shooter]

If you aren't buying premium brass it helps with run out. That is why I got into neck turning. I have a 204 Ruger and struggled to find decent brass and was getting run out when sizing my brass because the neck wall thickness was so uneven. Using FL Forster dies and turning the necks made my groups much smaller. Now that I have fired that brass about 5 times my groups are opening up slightly. I have a salt annealing kit on the way so hopefully that will get neck tension back to normal. I can really feel the difference in neck tension when seating lately and all the brass is uniform in dimensions. I was able to take the guess work out of why I was feeling the difference in tension because all my neck were turned to the same dimension. Also, when turning the necks I really just take down the thicker side.

Or avoid turning and just buy some Lapua brass!

 

[horseman2]

Neck turning started with a Remington 40XB in 6 mm Remington.
Over time various brass showed excessive thickness in one spot and taking about 2/3rds off the high sides shows improvement.
Taking hunting rounds down all the way may cause a lack of tension on heavy calibers like the 338 Win Mag.
My guides are for .224, .243, .257, .264, .277, .284, .308 and .338 and over time I have tried all of those.
Don't try it on nickel plated brass . . . use the Lee Collet die.
Even trimming nickel plated brass to length will wreck a carbide cutter.

 

[FGR]

Neck turning seems to be one of those things that is a ways down the road of diminishing returns. It does make a difference but only noticeable when everything else is dialed in ie. perfect powder measure, seating depth etc. I do it just to remove that variable and made it part of my trimming step. Forster trimmer with the drill attachment and it goes pretty quickly, only drawback is it takes some time and tweaking to get set up for different cases. Solution, make sure you have a large batch to go through.

 

[rick357]

If you aren't buying premium brass it helps with run out. That is why I got into neck turning. I have a 204 Ruger and struggled to find decent brass and was getting run out when sizing my brass because the neck wall thickness was so uneven. Using FL Forster dies and turning the necks made my groups much smaller. Now that I have fired that brass about 5 times my groups are opening up slightly. I have a salt annealing kit on the way so hopefully that will get neck tension back to normal. I can really feel the difference in neck tension when seating lately and all the brass is uniform in dimensions. I was able to take the guess work out of why I was feeling the difference in tension because all my neck were turned to the same dimension. Also, when turning the necks I really just take down the thicker side.

Or avoid turning and just buy some Lapua brass!

Drop down to a one size smaller neck bushing once the brass starts to case harden. It is a LOT cheaper than an annealer.