Full length or neck sized

[Ian]

I think most people at best read and follow the directions in Lyman's cast bullet publications or their handloading manual and get the same dismal results Lyman did. Let's see.......30-'06 Springfield, cast bullets from pure linotype alloy, size so .308", lube with NRA 50/50, launch with 18 grains of 2400. What could possibly go wrong?

If the load makes more than about 20K PSI peak pressure, we should really be paying attention to how much axial force our load is putting on the breech face.

 

[fiver]

now that i think about it i have never seen a publicated magazine do an actual in depth brass preparation article of any real depth.

yeah,, you see i cut the case mouths square, then i fire formed, blah,blah.
but you never see in print i fire formed my trimmed cases and they all come out 10 thou shorter.

 

[Ian]

Neither do you ever see an article that tells you to run the neck in and out of an FL die half a dozen times with expanding button installed to work harden the necks, then fireform, THEN bushing neck size for your cast bullets and shoot for groups. Nor do you see much mention of segregating brass by the feel of the press handle....or reading on a spring scale attached to the press handle....when expanding case necks. This is not "always" stuff, just tricks for "sometimes" and experience for "when" only comes from lots of "'spearmenting".

 

[waco]

Nor do you see much mention of segregating brass by the feel of the press handle..

Right? This is a very real thing. not even sure how to go about sorting this out.

 

[Bret4207]

It's the little things that you don't even think about sometimes that add up to success or failure. Annealing, for example, is pretty darn easy, but I bet not 5% of reloaders ever think of it.

 

[todd]

now that i think about it i have never seen a publicated magazine do an actual in depth brass preparation article of any real depth.

yeah,, you see i cut the case mouths square, then i fire formed, blah,blah.
but you never see in print i fire formed my trimmed cases and they all come out 10 thou shorter.

here ya go. i am fire forming 35/30-30 at 50 or was 100 yards? this was with open sights, i now use Williams FP sight.

 

[MW65]

Aperture sights tend to work great for me... a lot better than regular sights on marlins. Still quick to get on target, and adds some accuracy to boot.

 

[RBHarter]

Short sizing . FL die sizing just enough to get good neck tension length w/o messing up the fire form .

FL sized . Using the whole die and changing every dimension of the fired case above the head back to or very close to factory dimensions .

Neck sizing . Using a 308 die on a 30-30 case .

Shoulder bump typically uses a fitted die vs a FL or neck die , other wise it is just a version of FL sizing .

I'm sure that in basic form the above is a fair description.

The 87 micro details that we do "because it's part of our process" , is compiled by shooting 1000s probably 10s of 1000s of rounds and searching for why the heck does that one shot always go over there answer . So removing that reason , where possible, during our prep keeps that bug from being a bug .

I wonder now if I shouldn't try the 264 WM on the 25-06 with the 25 cal expander and depapper rod .....

 

[Tomme boy]

If you are using a partial sizing with a fl die on a tapered case you are messing up the fire formed case. The die will start hitting the walls and pushing the shoulder forward the farther down the die goes.

Here is what happens in a fl die. As the die moves down the case as you raise the ram, It starts to squeeze the case. As that happens the only way the brass can go is up into the die. And it keeps going up as the die sizes. Now the important part. The brass hits the shoulder of the die. But the brass is now longer so the shoulder hits a little early. Now remember the brass is still getting longer at this point. So as the die hits the shoulder where is that brass going to go? The shoulder is being pushed back to where you set the die. That brass is now being pushed up through the neck.

That is how the brass grows. So if you do a partial size where you don't touch the shoulder you are going to push that shoulder forward. Then you wonder why all f a sudden you have a firm bolt throw. This is why you should bump the shoulder back at least 0.001". Or use a dedicated neck only die. A partial sizing does nothing to aide your accuracy.

 

[Ian]

That brass is now being pushed up through the neck.

and also into a "donut" at the base of the neck, particularly in the instance of the RCBS X die.

 

[popper]

Interesting part is most FL die shoulder area is NOT the same as the chamber.

 

[RBHarter]

If you are using a partial sizing with a fl die on a tapered case you are messing up the fire formed case. The die will start hitting the walls and pushing the shoulder forward the farther down the die goes.

Here is what happens in a fl die. As the die moves down the case as you raise the ram, It starts to squeeze the case. As that happens the only way the brass can go is up into the die. And it keeps going up as the die sizes. Now the important part. The brass hits the shoulder of the die. But the brass is now longer so the shoulder hits a little early. Now remember the brass is still getting longer at this point. So as the die hits the shoulder where is that brass going to go? The shoulder is being pushed back to where you set the die. That brass is now being pushed up through the neck.

That is how the brass grows. So if you do a partial size where you don't touch the shoulder you are going to push that shoulder forward. Then you wonder why all f a sudden you have a firm bolt throw. This is why you should bump the shoulder back at least 0.001". Or use a dedicated neck only die. A partial sizing does nothing to aide your accuracy.

This is true but is also dependent on the actual dimensional difference between chamber and die . In the case of my many times told three 06's the 760 with the almost match chamber only altered anything but the neck in the bigger die the last 1/10 of an inch of stroke . At .2 it missed the shoulder on the fat shouldered chamber . It was at .2 just touching the lower body and a .1 of the neck but not the shoulder.

 

[fiver]

holes in steel, holes,, you gotta measure.

 

[Tomme boy]

A factory Remington with a match chamber??????? Never happened.

 

[RBHarter]

It is the smallest 06' chamber of 3 Savages , 3 Rem , an 03A3 11/43 Rem , and a Win M70 . Narrow shoulder , long from rim to neck, 2.505 OAL . .309 is all it will chamber w/o turn or ream of the necks it might be a match chamber but it was darn close to the last one cut with that finish reamer .

 

[Bret4207]

You dint have to size the whole neck! That avoids touching the shoulder, or case at all in some applications.

 

[RBHarter]

That is why I had a die set up to hard bottom for the 760 and anything that didn't run through it from factory ammo and a second set up to only size about .2 of the necks . The 30-30s knocking around now are all brass sharing so I size that in a 308 die . The 257 Roberts goes through a 6.5-257 AI with no expander button for cast as does the 25-06 .

At the time I was hard after the 06's and figuring out cast it never occurred to me to use a no body contact die .......I might revisit that with the 308 or 300 wsm sizer .

I only have real neck dies for the 7.7 , 222 , and 223 . The 7.7 die is a 8×57 w/o an expander because the 7.7 needs a .318 bullet .

 

[fiver]

the WSM will do it.
i use a 7 wsm die for the 7-ICL, cause an Ackley die is too much of a squeeze on the body.