223 dies - neck tension question

[Murray Brook]

Not expanding your case neck before seating can cause 2 bad things. One, the bullet can become damaged because it was not designed to act as an expander and a tight neck will almost certainly induce bullet run-out. This has been my experience.

 

[Webster]

I load 223/556 for my AR style rifles. I use a Redding FL sizing die, no bushing. I have recently come into a newly rebarreled Rem 700 in 223. Do you think I should purchase a FL sizing die which utilizes neck bushings, or keep on using the non bushing set of dies I currently have and use? Rifle will be used to shoot 100 yards at most, range fun gun. New barrel is a 26 inch Krieger.

Thanks

Changing neck tension doesn't mean you will see the groups get smaller. Are you willing to buy a die and 3-4 bushing sizes to find out. From my experience I would think you have to shoot round groups consistently under .350" to see a difference.

 

[Jerry Snyder]

Jerry,
Either the standard or S TYPE dies will work. HOWEVER, I do suggest that you get a die set and set it up for THAT RIFLE. I know it may be expensive. But the aggravation it saves having to constantly adjusting dies between your AR and the bolt gun is priceless. Just my opinion.

I just purchased a new set of Redding dies for this rifle today, thanks for the advice.

A couple decades ago, I got a set of RCBS Competition dies in .223. I was loading for Service Rifle, and took in all the info I could. I bent up a primer pin when trying to resize some military brass, and RCBS sent me a couple more, but this led to a little tip about neck tension. One of the pieces of advice I got, not really sure who I got it from, was that you almost couldn't have too much neck tension. I was told to just take the expander off that decapping shaft and not worry about expanding. The thought is that first, the dies are very precisely machined for concentricity, and that spindly threaded rod for the decapping pin really isn't, so don't risk a slightly bent or canted rod induce an inconsistency to the case neck when pulling an expanding ball back through the case at what may not be a straight line. And secondly, higher neck tension will help with getting the case pressure higher before letting the bullet go. Both made sense to me.
Some suggested that leaving the decapping rod loose in the die, would allow it to self-align when pulling the case down around it when resizing, but it's a threaded rod and threads are not perpendicular to the direction of force. The only negative to this is when seating flat based bullets. Any boattail will slip right in, but some flat based bullets aren't as cooperative.
Anyway, I've removed the expander balls from my dies whenever possible and have no issues.

 

[Jerry Snyder]

Changing neck tension doesn't mean you will see the groups get smaller. Are you willing to buy a die and 3-4 bushing sizes to find out. From my experience I would think you have to shoot round groups consistently under .350" to see a difference.

I have a nice set of standard Redding dies on my Dillon 650 set up for my Ar platforms. I just purchased a set of type "S" dies from Redding today to load on my Forster COAX. Thanks for the message.

 

[Jerry Snyder]

I use bushing dies to reduce the over sizing solid dies do. To control neck tension, get a set of mandrels from 21sr Century. Annealing helps with consistency. Good chamfers on id and od plus a consistent trim are also important. This is for a bolt gun or single loading an AR.

Great advice, I ordered some mandrels from 21st and already have an AMP annealer, and Giraud trimmer. Maybe I can make decent ammo. This will be for a 1982 Rem 700 in 223 with a new Krieger barrel.

 

[Jerry Snyder]

Great reply

Thank you for the advice.

 

[mikecr]

Not expanding your case neck before seating can cause 2 bad things. One, the bullet can become damaged because it was not designed to act as an expander and a tight neck will almost certainly induce bullet run-out. This has been my experience.

Add to that inconsistent seating depths, and necks with an outward spring back bias (instead of inward).
Plus high tension equals higher variance of tension, and an extreme starting pressure can mean hitting max peak pressure with a poor case fill.
Some of these attributes should be considered with excess annealing as well.