Reloading 338WM - Opinions

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Have myself a 338, finally got enough brass accumalated for reloading. Bought myself a die set, but, I am a fan of only neck sizing my cases. Also a big fan of the classic lee loader ( yes I have seen the cartoon of bugs bunny pounding the artillery shells, and marking them DUD - hehehehe ). Now i bought some new remington brass, and have 60 fire formed cases from my weatherby ( literally that many rounds). After putting the mic to the base by the belt, and then to the area before the should, the fire formed brass is 0.005 consistantly from the new brass ( which BTW appears to be even smaller then design specs so the fireformed brass is more consistant to the specs ).

So my question is, can I get away with the second die, to just neck resize these cases. This added advantage of fire formed cases would give me more volume.

Anyone have experience with this ?
 
Thats a big caliber(hunting , poss dangerous game), I would half size for lack of a better word. What I do with my 375 is size the neck around 1/4 inch or maybe a little less(just to get a good hold of the bullet), this also sizes the body a bit. This way I never have a feed problem.
Now for a target gun a neck sizing die would be choice. :) use dies to match cal. would be my 2 pennies worth
 
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Thx for the reply Levi, so just neck sizing is a feasable option then. I couldn't see a problem with it, but then again, I am dealing with a lot more powder LOL.

Can I ask why just a 1/4 inch on the neck ? Does it help velocity ? I would emagine you don't crimp this afterwards either right ?
 
Can I ask why just a 1/4 inch on the neck ? Does it help velocity ? I would emagine you don't crimp this afterwards either right ?
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Thats for sizing with a full length sizing die, where you back the die off a bit so you don't size it back to factory specs but enough to hold the bullet. Crimp I don't do, even with my 375.
If you plan on using a neck size die (338 die) then it will size the next of the case only.
Sorry for the poor how to, someone may be able to clarify. :)
 
Levi's got it--just back out the FL die a few turns. You can figure out how far to pull it back by blackening a piece of fired brass in a candle flame, and then running it through the sizer and checking where on the case it's making contact.

FWIW I'm neck sizing my .338 (good old Lee collet dies), but if I were planning to take it to Alaska after bears, I'd FL resize all my cases. I've had no trouble extracting or feeding, but _still_...

Don't worry about crimping bottlenecked rifle rounds. So long as you've got plenty of neck tension, it's not necessary.
 
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