Where to find a neck turning tool??

[bigedp51]

Thanks for the help thus far guys. Like I said, Sinclair and brownells are truly out of stock. I will be checking Huntington tomorrow. If I can't find a tool, i may just turn a mandrel and my necks on a lathe at work.

Bigedp51, if I'm neck sizing with an expander ball type die, then using a mandrel, would my necks not end up uniform and concentric? Providing the die leaves the inner neck concentric to begin with. After all, the inconsistent thickness is what turning eliminates. My end goal is to use a Wilson hand die. Right now, I'm getting a small buldge near the shoulder junction with the Wilson die. This tells me my bushing is a tad too small, but that's the size I want to use. Solution=neck turn right? If I use a bushing die as is, even if it was the proper size, my inner necks would be out right?

I'm new to this, so these are just questions, not challenging your experience. My thought is to turn the necks until they clean up, then use my bushing neck only die to make concentric cases.

Jmiverson

I'm not trying to talk you out of neck turning, BUT be aware that companies like Remington, Federal etc. make different grades of brass. As an example the cheaper .223/5.56 "blasting" ammunition is not worth spending your time on any advanced case preparation. Meaning you can't make a silk purse from a sows ear and cheaper cases will have large amounts of case wall variations and drive you nuts. And if you spend more on Lapua or Nosler Custom brass you will have the highest quality brass you can get.

Wen you fire cartridge cases with unequal case wall thicknesses they will warp when fired. This is because the case will expand more on the thin side of the case causing it to warp and become banana shaped. These same cases when stood on the base will be leaning to the side, and you will need gauges to fine these bad cases.

I do not have the NECO gauge below but I didn't want you to think I made up the term "banana shaped case".

Bottom line, neck turning gives you uniform neck tension for uniform bullet release. And bad brass will drive you nuts and asking yourself what you are doing wrong when reloading. So get some gauges like I mentioned above and find the problem brass before doing anything to it in prep work and avoid the headaches.

And if you do not have a custom made rifle with a custom chamber I would recommend full length sizing only to get better concentric cases and bullet alignment with the bore.

Below advice from someone from Team Lapua USA who also worked in the ballistic lab at Sierra bullets.

Jmiverson, in the last 15 plus years I have bought a lot of gauges to check my brass and they are well worth the money. You do not need the best and most expensive gauges for off the shelf factory rifles, and you can get by well with the cheaper gauges. The trick is finding the bad cases and weeding them out before spending time on crappy brass.

All the once fire .223 "blasting" ammo Remington cases below were wet tumbled with stainless steel media, the primer pockets were uniformed, flash holes uniformed, etc. and when I went to neck turn them I found out they were not worth messing with. I went out and bought some Nosler Custom brass and didn't have to do anything to the brass in prep work. You will need to decide what your time is worth and the sore fingers from holding and prepping cases that go with it.

Trust me, three five gallon buckets of .223/5.56 cases makes for sore fingers when prepping brass.