Neck turning question...

[acloco]

Should I neck turn brass when new or after firing once?

[safetysheriff]

what kind of accuracy are you getting now; and what kind of shooting do you intend to do?

i wouldn't bother neck-turning brass for a Handi' unless i knew the brass was absolutely needing it, and unless i knew that the rifle and its chamber would benefit from it.

www.long-range.com has forums that allow you to see what some of the 600 yd' and beyond rifle matches use for properly-prepped brass.   

i hope that makes sense.

take care,

ss'   

[acloco]

I shoot paper and longer range prairie dogs - 100-700 yards.  Longest confirmed kill with my Savage 223 - 585 yards.

Longest hit with my 204 - 615 yards.

[bajabill]

neck turn after firing.  My lyman instructions said to neck size first.

[McLernon]

Neck size before you fire the more than once or twice.( ie before it work-hardens.) Prefereably before you fire it at all. Neck turning is fun. Do it if the neck thickness varies more a 1 thou.

God shootin'

McLernon

[Fred M]

Neck turning should be done with new unfired brass. Proper neck reamers come with matching expanders and reamer pilots, like the K&M my favorite.

For factory chambers I check the new brass with a tubing micrometer to get a reading on wall thickness variations. I then set the reamer so you ream about 75% of the cicumference and leave the thin part as is. In that way you don't increase the radial neck clearence.

Most factory chambers are quite liberal and the more radial clearance you have the more you work the brass when you size the cases. Three thou radial clearance is more than inough. Most factory brass in standard chambers are reamed to about 0.0125" more or less.

Your tubing micrometer needs to read in 1/10000"

For a custom chamber I use 0.0006" radial clearance. In this way the necks hardly get worked. This is the amount of brass spring back in most cases.

Talking to Varmint Al he loads his cases to a pressure that will require no sizing of any sort. The spring back will take care of neck tension for bullets. It requires a precision chamber, and neck walls. I do neck size with a bushing die that reduces the OD by two thou in my custom chambers.

Example 25 Hunter.
Chamber neck  0.2807", loaded case 0.2795, fired case neck .2795. Bushing size .277".  Neck wall 0.0112.

[safetysheriff]

Neck turning should be done with new unfired brass. Proper neck reamers come with matching expanders and reamer pilots, like the K&M my favorite.

For factory chambers I check the new brass with a tubing micrometer to get a reading on wall thickness variations. I then set the reamer so you ream about 75% of the cicumference and leave the thin part as is.

Talking to Varmint Al he loads his cases to a pressure that will require no sizing of any sort. The spring back will take care of neck tension for bullets. It requires a precision chamber, and neck walls. I do neck size with a bushing die that reduces the OD by two thou in my custom chambers.

Example 25 Hunter.
Chamber neck  0.2807", loaded case 0.2795, fired case neck .2795. Bushing size .277".  Neck wall 0.0112.

fred'

i think you are 'mixing' terminology, no?     outside neck turning will remove brass from a 'given' percentage of the necks circumference.    inside reaming of the neck will remove brass from the whole circumference and is prone to off-center reaming, thinness of brass in some areas around the neck, etc.etc.etc.

does anybody here really believe that in a normal, standard rifle like a Handi' that they will gain any appreciable amount of accuracy by neck turning?   the only way i can picture doing it with an appreciable gain is by significantly setting back the neck/shoulder area of a piece of brass to form something that would then fit a Handi'.   for example:  full-length sizing a piece of .30-06 brass (or one of its derivatives) to form the new neck of a .308/ 7mm-08/ .243/ .260/ or some such with Thick brass in the neck that can now be outside turned to fit the neck of a Handi's chamber.     and such a practice would present one with the potential formation of the dreaded "donut" that we've spoken about on this site.     

i think that the Handi's we all love will do very good service for a lot of purposes.   but i can't see any 'normal' piece of brass being made more compatible with a Handi' by neck turning or reaming.

sincerely,

ss'   

[Cknerr]

I agree with all the above. Don't loose sight of what it is you are really trying to accomplish. Aligning the bullet with the bore. For varmit rifles I trim the necks down to where they mostly clean up. THat way when I fire form them, things are pretty well lined up. Since I am carefull to use the same setting for ALL cases, they will act uniformally (at least that is the idea) on each bullet and powder charge. What might be more important is case length and the mouth being uniform so the bullet is grasped the same way each and every time. THe idea is all the bullets from any cartridge sit the same distance into the throat and are aligned with the bore.

The 6mmPPC I use for competition requires doing all the exotic stuff to each cartidge. There is also some very serious effort put into aligning the chamber with the bore. Unless you are going into that kind of shooting, you won't need to do all that work. This may decrease your groups by an 1/8" to 3/16" at best. Unless your rifle can consistantly shoot with that kind of accuracy, you are probable waisting your time. Besides, the more metal you remove from the neck, the fewer times you can reload that case without blowing off the neck...now talk about a pain in the @$$.

Well....ask and ye shall receive. Probably more then you wanted?

Take care,
Chris

[acloco]

Nope....just what I wanted.

As pointed out, maybe not said in so many words....at least this is what I picked up from the above posts...

For the standard chambered rifles, you can lightly clean 75% of the neck, just taking off the high spots.

I will post whether or not this little experiment helps or not.

I have 25 rounds of new 204 brass and 25 rounds of new 204 neck turned brass.  These are loaded in lots of three (except the last lot of each is 4 rounds).

Have the same loaded for 243 in a Handi as well.

I believe the dynamics of igniting the powder and the bullet leaving the case, from beginning to exit of the case mouth, will be affected some by necks that are not the same thickness.

Before we get to the loaded round, when sizing (don't care if it is FL or PFL or neck size), necks that are not coencentric, will start you off with off center rounds.  I believe it is worse with neck sized brass, as you are centering off of the hole in the neck, and squeezing unequal thickness brass.

Time will tell.

Has anybody tried running a test like this in standard chambers?

Of note, my 204 Handi chamber, from measuring fired brass, is sized correctly for non neck turned brass.

My 243 Handi chamber, can definitely use a 0.0015 cut.  Which, coincidently, is about what it takes to give the new 243 brass a light cut.  The light cut does not clean up the entire neck.

I will post results...when the wind dies down...argh!

[Fred M]

Safetysheriff
Quote
i think you are 'mixing' terminology, no?

No. I never said anything about inside neck reaming, it is only done rarely when cases are changed and part of the case body is used for a new neck, like expanding a 6BR to 30BR this creates a donut at the neck and shoulder junction on the inside which has to reamed out with an end cutting outside neck reamer pilot.. Any other time it is counter productive.

The idea of outside neck reaming is to make the neck walls concentric with the bore so the bullet is seated in line with the center of the bore.

A neck wall that is14 thou on one side and 11.5 thou on the other side will bounce the bullet cocked off the lead. Not good for accuracy. Whether outside neck reaming it is deamed beneficial was not under discusion.

Myself I outside neck ream all my ammo, also I have only two guns with standard chambers. If you have sloppy tools that can not ream to 0.0002, you may as well forget it.

Reaming speed should be 700RPM,  less will not produce the best job, because the reaming produces too much heat and expands the neck walls. Hand cranking is rather painful with the many passes needed.

I am not getting into any argument, I only explained how I do it. I thought that was the question.

[cheatermk3]

acloco:
You will gain much more by deburring the flash holes on your brass than you will by turning necks for a production rifle.

Fred:
Reaming usually refers to passing a cutting tool down the inside of a hole.  A reamer follows the inside of the hole removing material uniformly, thus doing nothing to correct defects (variance) in thickness.  The neck wall will still be off-spec, just thinner.

Turning refers to removing material from the outside and if done correctly should result in more material being removed from the thicker part of the neck wall.

[Fred M]

When I talk to a precision shooter about neck reaming the question never arises what that means. Since inside neck reaming is hardly ever done.

Reaming means also removing or removal. Neck turning and outside neck reaming is considered the same.

Since I am dealing here with shooters that are not familiar with the colloquial terms, nor with neck turning/reaming procedures, please accept my apologies if you were confused.

Yes, for the novice the name of the tool is " Neck Turner".