Bullet Seating/Neck Expanding

[AWLEAPHART]

Shooters,
When expanding brass neck up a size or just prepping virgin brass, some brass expands with just a little force and then I have some brass that takes a good bit of force. It seems that when seating bullets I have the same problem. The brass that I marked as hard to expand is the same brss that is harder to seat than normally. I have talked to shooters on this form before that tells me that the seating force should be the same with every bullet. Mine are not consistent. I have better luck with Laupa,6.5-284 for 284 Winchester) brass but with my 25-06 I use Winchester brass which the neck are inconsistent and I think that may be the problem there. I just was looking for new tricks of the trade to make life better on my end. Thanks

 

[JHardy]

Of course, you need a tapered mandrel to ease into the brass. You also need to lube the inside of the neck,dry, Imperial, FP-10, etc) so that there is no 'drag' so as to get an uniform feel and expansion from case to case. Small trick: keep a previously expanded brass case handy,boxed and marked). Lube the inside of that case and run it over the expander mandrel. This will 'prime' the mandrel so that the first case to be expanded will feel like the rest. BTW, the same trick can be used to prime a FL size die to prevent the first case from sticking and/or stretching.

I have several presses located on a long and heavy bench. On one end I have a Redding Ultra Mag which I use for expanding. I have found that the use of my heavier presses,Corbin, Ultra Mag, and RCBS A-4) do a better job on the expansion because they do not vibrate, flex and stress during the process like some of the light duty presses. If the press does not work smoothly on the expansion process, your expanded case necks will not be uniform. In fact, a light duty press can cause case neck splits as the stress on the press is transferred to the case neck.

If you can, get a carbide expander mandrel or have one made. You will never look back as your brass and prep time are much more expensive.

Here are a few additional tricks -- somewhat related if you have the time.

First, if you do not neck turn: After all the brass is expanded, chuck an extra mandrel in a padded vice with a thin coat of Flitz applied. I use a Hart shell holder fixture,for Redding shell holders) and an old DeWalt to spin my case necks over the mandrel/Flitz. Of course, your bullets will seat very uniform from the beginning, and your brass will clean up just right with a nylon brush thereafter.

Second, if you plan to neck turn: Apply a mixture of FP-10 and Flitz on the carbide neck turning mandrel as a lube for the neck turning process,don't do this on a standard mandrel). The inside of your necks will be very smooth and uniform. The outside of the necks will also get a little runover that will slick up the turn itself. This can pay dividends during you load development because you bullets will feel uniform when they seat as you have now built in uniform neck tension in your case neck prep.

I hope this helps a little -- anything to lower the ES in an effort to eliminate the vertical is worth the effort.

Good luck,
Jim Hardy

 

[alf]

Neck turning the high spots will help, along with annealing.

 

[AWLEAPHART]

Thanks alot. I am waiting on my new neck turner to get here and then I am going to try it out. Thanks again.

 

[AWLEAPHART]

I read and here that Bushing dies can make the Donut appear pushing on the neck and shoulder area when resizing. Is this fully true? If so can you only size 3/4 of the neck to keep the bushing out of the neck and shoulder area. My next question/is a non bushing die better than a bushing die if you get it set up for your personal rifle only? Thanks

 

[MT300RUM]

Neck turning the high spots will help, along with annealing.

+1 sounds like annealing would help alot,

 

[AlanPF]

I read and here that Bushing dies can make the Donut appear pushing on the neck and shoulder area when resizing. Is this fully true? If so can you only size 3/4 of the neck to keep the bushing out of the neck and shoulder area. My next question/is a non bushing die better than a bushing die if you get it set up for your personal rifle only? Thanks

Not sure whether bushing dies are the culprit, apart from the fact that they are usually used in conjunction with tight-neck chambers. I have had donuts caused by having a turned neck where the cutter blade was not parallel to the neck, and left a thicker taper near the shoulder. When the cases were fired, the outside of the neck formed straight, and the inside was narrower near the shoulder junction i.e. a donut. I've also seen where cases are FL sized, the thicker walled shoulder creeps down onto the tight neck and causes a donut - this can be prevented by extending neck turning into the shoulder somewhat. You can actually live with donuts by always seating long enough that the projectile doesn't touch them.

Alan

 

[AusFclass]

i had the same issue with lapua brass in 6.5x47. i thought the problem was with neck thickness so i sorted them in order of tightest to loosest when seating the projectiles. after firring i kept them in order an measured the necks and found nothing to show the tighter ones were thicker.

what i ended up doing was using the redding bushing die with a bushing .003 smaller than loaded round and then running a sinclair expander mandrel through them. you may need to play with the bushing size to ensure that the mandrel actually sizes up every case to a uniform tension. if the bushing is too large the mandrel will just flex the neck not actually expand it to a uniform size.

since then the tensions have been consistent. i haven't tried annealing but id be very interested to hear the result's.

 

[JRinCo]

JHardy
First, if you do not neck turn: After all the brass is expanded, chuck an extra mandrel in a padded vice with a thin coat of Flitz applied. I use a Hart shell holder fixture,for Redding shell holders) and an old DeWalt to spin my case necks over the mandrel/Flitz. Of course, your bullets will seat very uniform from the beginning, and your brass will clean up just right with a nylon brush thereafter.

Does this work on fired cases?

 

[JHardy]

I have never tried the process on fired brass. If you sized the brass with a bushing die or FL non-bushing die, then expanded the brass with a mandrel, you would probably be fine so long as the fit was not too tight.

I suspect you could even chuck up a chamber/bore swab of the correct size with a little Flitz,or chuck the brass). In fact, that would probably work well. Of course, you will need to give your brass a bath to clean up the residue.

This is all sort of a PITA, but you only have to do it once. After that, it is easy to maintain.

Jim Hardy

 

[JRinCo]

Your idea of using a swab could have some merit. I'll give it a try.