New brass

OEM

OEM

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Hello:
Does new brass need to be full-length resized or necksized? I was helping this buddy of mine with his new 308 lapua cartridges and the bullets could not be hand-pushed into the mouth of the casing. If that were the case, how would one adjust the neck tension? During bullet seating, the neck tension is adjusted right? How does one ascertain the degree of tightness that it should get?

Another thing I found was that all the necks and shoulders were discoloured somewhat. The rest of the brass was shiney, but for some reason that area at the top looked kinda "burnt or heated". Any ideas as to why?
 
During sizing the neck is sized to give a few thou interference fit. New brass is also formed to give this fit. When you seat the bullet with the seating die, it pushes the bullet sufficiently to overcome the interference. Suggest you read a manual, or at least the instructions with the dies.
Its not essential to size new brass. The discoloration is annealing - quite normal..
 
Thanks Cosmic. I have only ever done once-fired brass from my own rifle (and hence only seem to read info on that from my manual, the ABC). In those casings, the bullets all seemed to just drop into the casing until I use my neck-sizing die. And I would adjust that until the bullets could go in, but tightly.

In this case, the new casings were really tight and bullet could not go in at all. Hence the question. I guess the new brass tightness is the 'correct' tightness to go with?
 
OEM said:
Thanks Cosmic. I have only ever done once-fired brass from my own rifle (and hence only seem to read info on that from my manual, the ABC). In those casings, the bullets all seemed to just drop into the casing until I use my neck-sizing die. And I would adjust that until the bullets could go in, but tightly.

In this case, the new casings were really tight and bullet could not go in at all. Hence the question. I guess the new brass tightness is the 'correct' tightness to go with?
Click to expand...

A number of folks check for dents on the mouth and if there aren't any, start to load the new brass. I have loaded Lapua and Nosler brass right out of the pkg.FS
 
You are not suppused to be able to seat the bullets by hand. A press with a die must be employed to seat the bullet. It's called a press because that's it's funtion. If you can seat any bullet by hand, the neck is not properly sized, or if it's properly sized and you can push a bullet in by hand, it's because the brass has become hardened due to muliple firing and reloading. It's lost it's elasticity for want of a better word. When that happens I believe you either toss the brass, or if I'm not mistaken, reannealing would help. Pesonally, I would toss it. As far as FL resizing new brass, I personally think it's a good idea, because the necks on bulk brass are out of round. That, and you've addressed one possible variable, and that is to have consistently dimensioned brass. If anyone reading this believes I'm mistaken on anything, please let me know.

One other thing. As another poster stated, make sure you thoroughly read the basics of reloading available at the beginning of every manual, as well as thoroughly reading and understanding the instructions that come with the dies.
 
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