Inconsistent Neck Tension

[Scott Harris]

Scott,,what unit r u using?

Rice!...medium grain fat sushi rice that does not get stuck in flash holes.

 

[Scott Harris]

Scott,,what unit r u using?

what do you use Nick?

 

[ngb1787]

what do you use Nick?

Tumbler,,water, pins, old fashion way, brass looks like crap,,doesnt shine, but still works. I’m pretty damn lazy With reloading and pretty much everything else so was thinking of an ultrasonic unit,

 

[Scott Harris]

Tumbler,,water, pins, old fashion way, brass looks like crap,,doesnt shine, but still works. I’m pretty damn lazy With reloading and pretty much everything else so was thinking of an ultrasonic unit,

Ha. try da rice, you will like it. it's the lazy man technique

 

[ngb1787]

what do you use Nick?

Was thinkin of this one,
https://www.ultrasonicsdirect.com/ultrasonic-cleaner-sh180-4l.html

 

[BenPerfected]

Tumbler,,water, pins, old fashion way, brass looks like crap,,doesnt shine, but still works. I’m pretty damn lazy With reloading and pretty much everything else so was thinking of an ultrasonic unit,

Before you spend anymore money on your brass, my suggestion is to call DJ’s Brass Service and have a conversation with Darrell. He is a great guy and he will help you. (205) 461-4680
Ben

 

[ngb1787]

Before you spend anymore money on your brass, my suggestion is to call DJ’s Brass Service and have a conversation with Darrell. He is a great guy and he will help you. (205) 461-4680
Ben

Thanks for input! Brass is fine, rifles shoot great, just want to be lazier in prep,

 

[blastit37]

With a US cleaner, you can leave the carbon in the necks by only filling the cleaning solution up to the base of the neck. Then, clean off the carbon from the outside of the neck with 0000 steel wool.

 

[Jay Christopherson]

Not sure why you are insisting on soaking your brass. save yourself another round of this conversation in a month (because you are going to have the same issue with US cleaning) and drop the water. If reducing effort is part of your goal, using water is not the answer.

 

[Frans]

This thread was a good read, and it confirms a number of things myself and shooting friends experienced with regards to neck tension not being constant due to the carbon being removed from the necks on the inside. In all cases the US Cleaner or SS Wet Media Tumbler was the culprit.Took us a while to figure out as we eliminated each possibility one by one.

Every time I see a person buy a SS Media Tumbler I immediately feel sorry for them, they are in for a surprise. Some try to solve this issue as mentioned already by using the imperial dry neck lube (graphite) but it just isn't constant enough to get ES low.

Old school is cool. Vibratory Tumblers for the win.

With my system as it is now I Tumble, Anneal, FL Size(Standard Redding), Chamfer and lastly I run an expander Mandrel through the necks and let them sit overnight to allow for springback in any direction. Next day I prime, charge and seat bullets... This results in constant 2Thou tension and sub 10fps ES.

This post is way too long, but I'm just excited to be back on the forum after some absence.

 

[ngb1787]

Not sure why you are insisting on soaking your brass. save yourself another round of this conversation in a month (because you are going to have the same issue with US cleaning) and drop the water. If reducing effort is part of your goal, using water is not the answer.

Jay, what do you suggest?

 

[Hohn]

Neck tension can either mean the amount of force it takes to move the bullet in the neck, or it can mean the amount of compressive force the neck exerts on the bullet.

They are separate things but related by friction. The compression force times the friction gives you the force resisting the bullet depth change.

Yhe friction is the hard part to get consistent. The neck force is easy, just turn your necks, then size it enough to guarantee you are yielding the neck fully when seating (>0.002” interference or so) to ensure the metallurgy of the neck is determining tension. Then anneal every neck every time. You will have consistent tension because you’ve made it a property of the metal itself and not the geometry. I think @damoncali has an article in this on his excellent site.
https://bisonballistics.com/articles/case-neck-tension-a-stress-analysis

 

[Jay Christopherson]

Jay, what do you suggest?

I mentioned earlier, but I would either not clean at all or vibratory tumble (the rice suggestion sounds like a good one) if shiny cases is your thing. You're not getting any value out of stripping your cases back to metal.

If getting cases wet is important to you, then I'd clean for 15-30 min , MAX. But that seems like an awful lot of mess and fuss for no particular value, IMO.

 

[MikeMcCasland]

With my system as it is now I Tumble, Anneal, FL Size(Standard Redding), Chamfer and lastly I run an expander Mandrel through the necks and let them sit overnight to allow for springback in any direction. Next day I prime, charge and seat bullets... This results in constant 2Thou tension and sub 10fps ES.

Good post. Your process is nearly identical to mine, but you bring up a point that I too have noticed.

What I have noticed is that if I don't mandrel expand brass fairly soon after sizing, or expand after tumbling the lube off overnight, the mandrel will barely size the brass (if at all) the following day. For reference, I put .0015 tension via die, and expand up .0005 to bullet diameter -.001.

There seems to be an element of time + springback that contributes to neck tension, and my current theory is that brass will spring back opposite the direction it was last manipulated. i.e. sizing down will spring back with less tension, but expanding will actually cause springback to give you more tension.

To be clear, I wet tumble, but I do it for no more than 15-20 minutes (as Jay states). I do it specifically to remove the annealing discoloration quickly. I've double and triple annealed brass before because I couldn't tell what stage of the process I was in.

Interesting thread.

 

[Ccrider]

I've double and triple annealed brass before because I couldn't tell what stage of the process I was in.

When I have double annealed before firing using an Amp, I get different neck tension.

 

[MikeMcCasland]

When I have double annealed before firing using an Amp, I get different neck tension.

Yup. That's wet tumble. So I can visibly tell if I've already annealed a piece of brass, thus avoiding accidentally annealing it 2-3 times.

If you don't clean and you're annealing cases, by the 4th-5th firing it can be a little difficult to tell what stage of the process it's in. If you ever take a couple of day break between stages (and don't write down what you're doing) it can be hard to tell what you've done/not done.

 

[Sandstorm]

Yep....agreement here on writing stuff down and taking notes..The older I get the more shiot I cant
remember...short term anyway. I think we have all made some blunders in our quest to build the perfect round.
Now I try to finish a process or leave myself a note as to where the hell I was..lol

 

[BenPerfected]

Yep....agreement here on writing stuff down and taking notes..The older I get the more shiot I cant
remember...short term anyway. I think we have all made some blunders in our quest to build the perfect round.
Now I try to finish a process or leave myself a note as to where the hell I was..lol

Amen

 

[Mad_Charlie]

Yep....agreement here on writing stuff down and taking notes..The older I get the more shiot I cant
remember...short term anyway. I think we have all made some blunders in our quest to build the perfect round.
Now I try to finish a process or leave myself a note as to where the hell I was..lol

Short pencil is better than long memory. I call my notes and lists my "paper brain".

It's called being smart enough to know what you need to do to avoid mistakes, handloading is not an endeavor that tolerates very many mistakes.

 

[ngb1787]

I mentioned earlier, but I would either not clean at all or vibratory tumble (the rice suggestion sounds like a good one) if shiny cases is your thing. You're not getting any value out of stripping your cases back to metal.

If getting cases wet is important to you, then I'd clean for 15-30 min , MAX. But that seems like an awful lot of mess and fuss for no particular value, IMO.

Shiny doesnt do anything for me, just clean primer pockets. Thanks for ur input. May try the rice, Scott generally has pretty good and proven ideas.