Lee collet dies and neck turning?

[doninva]

I bought a Lee collet die for my 223. It seems to work OK on standard cases but can't get it to work on outside neck turned cases. I need to sand the mandral down. Lee's instructions say you can go .001 but will that be enough for neck turned cases. Anyone have any experience with this. Thanks, Don

[Kurt L]

I have done lots of 270 win and 30-06 neck turned
and found i needed to turn the die in or down a little bit more and it worked fine for all of them.did you try this by chance.

[wncchester]

Well, you don't tell us how the collet die "doesn't work" on your turned necks. 

Too little bullet grip?   If so, all you likely need do is turn the die body down another 1/16th turn (4.5 thou), as suggested.

There is no point in sizing a neck down more than 1-2 thou below loaded diameter.  Going further demands the bullet expand the neck passed the elastic limits of the brass.  Thus, excessive bullet "tension", more than 2 thou, only produces more difficult seating.  That bends case necks randomly and that makes for unnecesary bullet run-out.

[doninva]

Wasn't getting enough tension on the bullets. I tried turning it down. I brought it to work today and polished everything up. I also took the rod diameter from .222 to .221. This will probably give me enough tension. Was just wondering if anyone else had run into this issue. Thanks, Don

[Catfish]

For neck sizeing case with turned neck there is only 1 way to do it, in my oppenion at least. Get a  bushing neck size die, then order the size bushing you need. I have them in Redding and RCBS. You can get bushing dies in FL dies also. These dies are also far more consistant than the collet dies.

[LaOtto222]

I have both the Collet dies and Redding precision necking dies with bushings. I like the simplicity of the Lee collet dies. How far did you turn the necks down? It should not make any difference how thick the necks are, the collet should squeeze the neck down to the spindle, making the inside the same no matter the out side diameter. If you have turned the necks down a good bit, there may not be enough material left to "set" the neck inner diameter, springing back after sizing. The nice thing about the bushing type dies - if you do not have enough bullet grip, you can just plop another bushing with a smaller diameter in. Since I load mostly for 224 calibers, I have bushings from .241 through .250 and I find the size that gives just enough bullet tension with out distorting the neck when the bullet is seated. In general I have found the Lee collet dies do not give a bunch of bullet tension, but enough to get the job done. I have one for 22 Hornet, that does not give enough bullet tension. I can pull the bullet out with my fingers and if I am not careful, I will push a bullet right into the case. I solved that one by using my 221 Fireball neck sizing die with a proper bushing to give me just the right bullet tension. Even though I have a Redding precision neck sizing die for 223, I still use the Lee collet die. I seems to control the run out in the necks and it does not distort a whole lot when seating a bullet. Good Luck and Good Shooting.

[doninva]

Sized some cases last night after working the collet die. It worked outstanding. Don