Honing die necks

[robbor]

Anyone hone their die necks out? Im looking for tips.
I just ordered 2 flex hones from evilbay, mistermortis store for $5 and & $7.5. .250 and .276 and figured id have a go since i was thinking about trying to open up some dies for forming any way.

 

[rayjay]

I would think that your chances of keeping the neck uniform, concentric, parallel and untapered would be about zero.

 

[spclark]

Any of the manufacturers of reloading dies will - for a price - set you up with a custom neck diameter if you ask them to.

May take a few weeks,some are better at this than others) but you'll have a die in the end that's just as perfect and concentric as their multi-thousand dollar equipment can make, instead of something that's,99.9% likely) ruined for any practical purpose.

If you want freedom of choice for neck diameter, use a bushing die.

 

[Preacher]

Hand honing is best left to a high dollar machine, just thinking about doing it by hand is scary at best......

 

[robbor]

Honing on lathe all alligned.

 

[holstil]

You got my interest, I have a die or two that I'd like to scrape out. I sent one to Jim Carstensen a while back, before I bought a lathe, and never asked questions. Maybe best to call him.

 

[rayjay]

There is nothing precision about a flex hone.

 

[robbor]

I just honed out one of my dies. The hone was 240 grit. Hole produced .244 neck brass and i honed it out to low .246. The honing went fine but really slow. I honed in both directions and removed the die each time for checking diameter on brass. It took 4 passes of atleast a 2 minutes each. If anything the necks seemed slightly more consistent after the honing. The moral of the story is for $10 its a deal to get forster to hone a die neck out. I was expecting the honing to go faster.