Lapua flashholes vs.Variance gauge ?

[FatBoy]

My lovely wife bought me a Sinclairs neck wall thickness/varience gauge for Christmas,,I cheated and got one early) and I've been playing with it for the last half hour of so.

What I'm finding has me a bit concerned. When checking brass,all Lapua 6.5x284 of different lots and age) I'm finding that the flashholes are causing the cases to bind on the pilot rod. This, in turn, shows a fault varience of up to .005", and is causing obvious wobble in the case.

I went ahead and took the cases that dragged, and ran a .086" flashhole reamer through them, and rechecked. All but one dropped to under .002 varience, most are at or under .001".,pretty good for no neck turning). So,, the flashholes are either slightly small for the mandrel, slightly off centered, or both. I'm inclined to think both.

Now my delimma. I have to do 700 cases for next season. I'm thinking about re-cutting all these flashholes by hand. That doesn't thrill me AND I'm not real fond of enlarging the flash holes to begin with. I don't see any way around it, unless I reduce the OD of the mandrel that pilots into the flashhole. That still wouldn't make these holes centered.

Has anyone else seen this? if so,, what did you do?

If I can't think of anything else,,or get some advice) I'm going to have a machinst friend reshape the cutter body to fit into a 14mm socket, and I'm gonna drill these suckers with a hand drill. The top of the unit will still have to be hend held, but that's alright, as it's just to pilot the cutting shaft anyway.

Chris...

 

[FatBoy]

I just re-cut 500 flashholes to .086". I have been thinking it over, and I don't think this will hurt accuracy. It may not help, but I don't think it'll hurt.

If I find the 210M's to be too much primer now, I'll try the Russian units. I don't see it coming to that though.

Thanks for looking.

Chris...

 

[FatBoy]

Something I noticed on these new cases. The camfer is cut from the factory, so the brass is think at the lip. The normal dings it gets from shipping is enough to induce .001" or more varience. At dent is .005" or more.

I generally run all my cases over a K&M .263" expander mandrel and then FL size before I load. I'm going to neck turn these though. So, They'll get to see two mandrels. 300 cases will be 6.5x284, and 200 will be 284Lapua match,284win). I got my chamberes set up for no-neck turn, but I want .003 clearnace. I could probably get .003 with the 284 chamber, but it looks like turning will be required for the FagMag. I guess as long as I'm doing 300, I might just as well remove the extra material from the neck of the 284Lapua cases.

A buddy of mine has a Sinclair set-up on a 1/2" drill. Cutter in the drill, cases fed in by hand. Works great for him, but he's donme thousands. I'm going to give it a shot, and then decide between K&M tools or Sinclair tools. Either way, it'll be motorized. Those flashholes took like 2 hours With a drill!!

Chris...