Outside neck turning and inside neck reaming.

[track]

Who hunts and conducts precision reloading with their hunting cartridges, such as: what the title states? I'll be starting this coming week with load development by turning necks, and then inside neck ream after range day.

 

[yodave]

inside neck reaming is a myth, the force of the cutter running down the neck can move that material to the outside of the neck rather then cutting it, then when you size the neck again guess what......it moves back inside the neck.....

full length size your brass, or use a neck sizer the will size the neck all the way down to the shoulder, I remove my expander mandrel when doing this, then I expand with my custom expander set, outside skim turn the necks, spin them in a drill with superfine steel wool to polish, then expand them again on another custom expander that gives me 2 thou neck tension. fortunately with hunting ammo this doesn't have to be done very often, or on that many pieces of brass........

 

[iron cat]

The only time I turned necks was when working with some of my 6.5 wildcats .
Otherwise , nope not worth it on my book.
Cat

 

[bearhunter]

OP, I'm not sure what degree of precision you're after.

I have turned the necks on Bench Rest ammunition with extremely tight tolerances for a couple of reasons. The first was because the neck of the case wouldn't enter the neck area of the custom match chamber when a bullet was in the neck. The second was to increase consistency of neck tension on the bullet between rounds. The bullets were usually seated long so that they would be forced back into neck a few thousands of an inch, when the bolt was closed.


If you don't have such a chamber there will likely be no difference to accuracy IMHO. I've tried it on several very accurate rifles with chambers cut to minimum specs. I have never noticed an increase in accuracy.

However, I have noticed that case neck mouths do start to split a bit earlier.

If you want to experiment, go for it. That will settle the issue in your mind forever. I would outside turn, rather than inside turn. Likely you will need special dies, with neck inserts to get reliable neck resizing and tensions.

 

[manitou210]

inside neck reaming is a myth, the force of the cutter running down the neck can move that material to the outside of the neck rather then cutting it, then when you size the neck again guess what......it moves back inside the neck.....

full length size your brass, or use a neck sizer the will size the neck all the way down to the shoulder, I remove my expander mandrel when doing this, then I expand with my custom expander set, outside skim turn the necks, spin them in a drill with superfine steel wool to polish, then expand them again on another custom expander that gives me 2 thou neck tension. fortunately with hunting ammo this doesn't have to be done very often, or on that many pieces of brass........

this is way to do necks

 

[travco]

Flash hole de-burring is important .

 

[BCBRAD]

Consider outside neck turning in conjunction with a Redding body die, Lee Collet Die and Lee factory crimp die for hunting, for targets the crimp die can be eliminated if single loading, also can help with lowering ES as well.

The Lee collet die forces all imperfections to the outside where the neck turning function can smooth the outside. There will be a 'donut' formed at the base of the neck over time and is easily turned off on occasion without altering the neck thickness at all. I don't turn necks to a 'value' but rather skim them so they are all the same ( I use no turn chambers).

 

[RonR]

Consider outside neck turning in conjunction with a Redding body die, Lee Collet Die and Lee factory crimp die for hunting, for targets the crimp die can be eliminated if single loading, also can help with lowering ES as well.

The Lee collet die forces all imperfections to the outside where the neck turning function can smooth the outside. There will be a 'donut' formed at the base of the neck over time and is easily turned off on occasion without altering the neck thickness at all. I don't turn necks to a 'value' but rather skim them so they are all the same ( I use no turn chambers).

OP, this is what I do for hunting rounds... is it necessary? For most situations probably not. I got into it all this to solve reloading process issues that were showing up at the range and in the field. No doubt this has helped with accuracy and my time at the butcher table has been reduced, but I am still not where I want to be at the range and am trying to improve more.

Now it's annealing and measuring case volumes to figure out why in the heck 1 of 4 or 1 of 5 ain't doing what its supposed to and get the ES and SD numbers down so that it carries out down the line.

For myself, I believe starting out with good consistent neck thickness brass would have prevented me getting into neck turning. Now that I am here, I am here. No regrets, but it can be a rabbit hole and may not be worth the effort.

inside neck reaming is a myth, the force of the cutter running down the neck can move that material to the outside of the neck rather then cutting it, then when you size the neck again guess what......it moves back inside the neck.....

full length size your brass, or use a neck sizer the will size the neck all the way down to the shoulder, I remove my expander mandrel when doing this, then I expand with my custom expander set, outside skim turn the necks, spin them in a drill with superfine steel wool to polish, then expand them again on another custom expander that gives me 2 thou neck tension. fortunately with hunting ammo this doesn't have to be done very often, or on that many pieces of brass........

Nicely put Yodave, and I thought I was the only guy with the steel wool technique. Cheers!

FWIW OP,
Regards
Ronr

 

[track]

Thanks for the responses guys! Accuracy from my big game rifles are excellent, better than what is required for hunting, however; I will pursue this process to experience it myself, that's the enjoyable part. Sometimes it can be frustrating when shooting 3 or 5 shot groups, and then that damn flyer. (I blame it on irregular neck tension) I even notice when seating a bullet, more resistance/tension/friction with about 25% of loads. Case and bullet run-out is equal or less than 0.001", therefore that can't be an issue. Thanks again for the responses!

 

[Ravage]

To get consistent neck tension wouldn't the lee crimp die do the same thing really ?

 

[yodave]

Thanks for the responses guys! Accuracy from my big game rifles are excellent, better than what is required for hunting, however; I will pursue this process to experience it myself, that's the enjoyable part. Sometimes it can be frustrating when shooting 3 or 5 shot groups, and then that damn flyer. (I blame it on irregular neck tension) I even notice when seating a bullet, more resistance/tension/friction with about 25% of loads. Case and bullet run-out is equal or less than 0.001", therefore that can't be an issue. Thanks again for the responses!

time to anneal, you will notice the seating pressure on the bullets will be much more uniform from case to case. when you seat bullets on a arbor press you can really feel the difference and know when it's time to anneal, when you have a K&S arbor with the pressure gauge you can really see when it's time to anneal, but from experience i can tell you that you can feel it long before you see it on the gauge

 

[BCBRAD]

OP, this is what I do for hunting rounds... is it necessary? For most situations probably not. I got into it all this to solve reloading process issues that were showing up at the range and in the field. No doubt this has helped with accuracy and my time at the butcher table has been reduced, but I am still not where I want to be at the range and am trying to improve more.

Now it's annealing and measuring case volumes to figure out why in the heck 1 of 4 or 1 of 5 ain't doing what its supposed to and get the ES and SD numbers down so that it carries out down the line.

For myself, I believe starting out with good consistent neck thickness brass would have prevented me getting into neck turning. Now that I am here, I am here. No regrets, but it can be a rabbit hole and may not be worth the effort.



Nicely put Yodave, and I thought I was the only guy with the steel wool technique. Cheers!

FWIW OP,
Regards
Ronr

Using the tools and techniques I have described, the handloader will have to turn the 'outside' donut that forms at the base of the neck over time. The user can feel this when closing the bolt ,then it is time to turn. This is with a no neck turn chamber. With a neck turn chamber with 1-1.5 thou clearance you may have to turn every few cycles as the base of the neck thickness due to the flowing brass. I only turn what's needed.


To reduce the 'flyer' , I weigh all the cases in a batch and segregate into 2 lots, then weigh cases with water and segregate again, then each batch is velocity sorted with a LabRadar. Also, weigh powder charges to the nearest 0.02 grains. Leave carbon in necks as well.

While the Lapua Scenars due not have the highest BC they seem the most consistent in manufacture. Again contributing to a low ES.

 

[RonR]

Using the tools and techniques I have described, the handloader will have to turn the 'outside' donut that forms at the base of the neck over time. The user can feel this when closing the bolt ,then it is time to turn. This is with a no neck turn chamber. With a neck turn chamber with 1-1.5 thou clearance you may have to turn every few cycles as the base of the neck thickness due to the flowing brass. I only turn what's needed.


To reduce the 'flyer' , I weigh all the cases in a batch and segregate into 2 lots, then weigh cases with water and segregate again, then each batch is velocity sorted with a LabRadar. Also, weigh powder charges to the nearest 0.02 grains. Leave carbon in necks as well.

While the Lapua Scenars due not have the highest BC they seem the most consistent in manufacture. Again contributing to a low ES.

Yes sir, noticed the outside donut thing a while back and spin that off regularly. Surprised actually at the amount of material that comes off.

Mystic I believe gave the tip of using salt instead of water so I think I will try that. Haven't thought about velocity sorting but I can see how that would work after magnetospeed results at the range recently. Only tried the Sierra match bullets, no experience with anything else.

Thanks for the tips!

And good luck OP. Have fun with it.

Regards
Ronr

 

[hawk-i]

I turn necks on my hunting rounds, its certainly doesn't hurt accuracy!