in reference to handloading ammo was around 1946 from my Dad....God rest his soul. At age 8 I was allowed to do my own reloading provided I went by his recipe as he had made me a checklist to go by and Dad always looked over my work...which was for 30/30 Winchester. Never had a problem with any ammo not working good. At age 8 Dad bought be a fine looking 1903A3 Springfield in 30/06. He told me if you want to shoot....I'll buy the components....you do the work! That was a deal as far as I was concerned. I also recall Dad buying powder for $1.25 pound! Enough history!
I shot NRA HP comp for roughly 50 years....not as often as I'd have liked because my primary work season was always over the summer when the shooting season was going strong. One of the things I've discovered over these years, and I'm quite certain that other folks here have discovered as well is that for optimum accuracy the fit of the bullet to the cartridge case, neck tension...must be consistent. As many shooters know, there are a lot of various different issues that enter into obtaining optimum accuracy with a rifle but IMO if I were going to only have one thing that I could do to enhance a rifle's accuracy potential that it would be paying attention to consistent neck tension of bullet to case neck! To obtain best accuracy from my rifles....I discovered long ago that in the quest for consistent neck tension that I needed to turn the necks of my brass to 'my' specific requirement which is .012" neck wall thickness. This works for me on all my .30 caliber cartridges very well and when I seat my bullets using the Wilson Inline seating tool I've used now for going on dang near 60 years...I obtain a consistent feel on the press each and every seating. New cartridge brass is always full-length resized which rounds out the inside of the neck and then I run the case through a die from Sinclair with an arbor size of .3075" and I then proceed to neck turn with a Sinclair 1500 neck turning tool. After all cases are NT I use a 22 degree chamfering tool on the mouth of the case and before I seat bullets I run a plastic .30 caliber brush inside the necks to remove any residue from the NT operation. Any cartridge I reload gets this same process! When neck turning a few of my other calibers the neck wall thickness will vary depending upon the brand of the brass being utilized. In conjunction with neck turning I also anneal case necks as needed.
Oh....by the way Dad......THANKS...for everything you taught me!!
The results thereto of my efforts:
15shot by Sharps Man, on Flickr
Hint:
I NEVER reload a bunch of ammo and let it sit for any extended length of time because if done, the brass will stress relieve and the neck tension will get tighter! When I was shooting matches I would load a couple of days before an event, depending upon how far away the match was I was driving to. And I have been known to....as in the case of some ball ammo which had to be fired through the M14 in a Leg Match or two to take my arbor press with me and to seat the bullets deeper at around .010" to break the neck tension! I won those events!
I shot NRA HP comp for roughly 50 years....not as often as I'd have liked because my primary work season was always over the summer when the shooting season was going strong. One of the things I've discovered over these years, and I'm quite certain that other folks here have discovered as well is that for optimum accuracy the fit of the bullet to the cartridge case, neck tension...must be consistent. As many shooters know, there are a lot of various different issues that enter into obtaining optimum accuracy with a rifle but IMO if I were going to only have one thing that I could do to enhance a rifle's accuracy potential that it would be paying attention to consistent neck tension of bullet to case neck! To obtain best accuracy from my rifles....I discovered long ago that in the quest for consistent neck tension that I needed to turn the necks of my brass to 'my' specific requirement which is .012" neck wall thickness. This works for me on all my .30 caliber cartridges very well and when I seat my bullets using the Wilson Inline seating tool I've used now for going on dang near 60 years...I obtain a consistent feel on the press each and every seating. New cartridge brass is always full-length resized which rounds out the inside of the neck and then I run the case through a die from Sinclair with an arbor size of .3075" and I then proceed to neck turn with a Sinclair 1500 neck turning tool. After all cases are NT I use a 22 degree chamfering tool on the mouth of the case and before I seat bullets I run a plastic .30 caliber brush inside the necks to remove any residue from the NT operation. Any cartridge I reload gets this same process! When neck turning a few of my other calibers the neck wall thickness will vary depending upon the brand of the brass being utilized. In conjunction with neck turning I also anneal case necks as needed.
Oh....by the way Dad......THANKS...for everything you taught me!!
The results thereto of my efforts:
15shot by Sharps Man, on FlickrHint:
I NEVER reload a bunch of ammo and let it sit for any extended length of time because if done, the brass will stress relieve and the neck tension will get tighter! When I was shooting matches I would load a couple of days before an event, depending upon how far away the match was I was driving to. And I have been known to....as in the case of some ball ammo which had to be fired through the M14 in a Leg Match or two to take my arbor press with me and to seat the bullets deeper at around .010" to break the neck tension! I won those events!
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