Neck (and body) sizing - what am I doing wrong?

[SGK]

https://saami.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/SAAMI-Z299.4-Centerfire-Rifle-Approved-12-14-2015.pdf pg 110 shows a dimension of .3462

Anyhow....I can't figure out how to get the necks realigned. I don't have a FL sizing die for this calibre, just a body die and neck sizing die, and so can't correct the neck with the body in a die. So absent some better ideas from you good folk I either have to buy another tool/die, fire-form the brass again or dump it and start afresh fire-forming my box of Lapua.

I still have 12 unsized cases from the batch - the cases I used to side-by-side compare the extra thou of neck tension - which I haven't touched (only annealed). I will run them through my sizing dies checking each step to see if the problem persists (having cleaned the bushing/die and backing out the screw on the press).

EDIT: well I just resized one of these. It's not the body die. It's not the screw on the press. The deformation is occurring when using the neck die and with both bushings.

 

[Hondo64d]

I measured the concentricity of a fired piece of brass. At the middle of the neck it is about 1.5-2 thou max variance. I look at the same batch of cases run through my Redding Type S bushing neck sizing die (having used the body die to resize the rest) and the middle of the neck is showing 8.5 thou of variance. The wobble in the neck is very visible to the naked eye. Mid shoulder variance is about 0.6 thou. So I have knocked the necks off-centre. What am I doing wrong and how to fix?

(Forster Coax press. Titanium nitride bushings. No lube.)

Are you still using the expander ball? If you are, stop using it. Some expanders pull the case neck out of alignment less than others (Forster), but every type I have tried does it to some extent, some of them horribly so.

John

 

[grovey]

https://www.brownells.com/reloading...y&utm_campaign=itwine&utm_content=749-004-853

 

[SGK]

Expander is removed.

308 Win.

@grovey yup. Only way I'm going to correct this is to align the neck and body at the same time. I had purchased the neck sizing set thinking I shouldn't FL resize. Having learnt that I should I was persevering with the two-step process of sizing the body and then the neck. Time to buy the FL die (and an intermediate bushing). Perhaps I should also try sizing much less of the neck also.

 

[BoydAllen]

On the expander ball, if you are not turning, or turning so little that you do not cut the full surface of the neck, you may see some benefit from using an expander ball that is SET UP CORRECTLY. First of all, for Redding and Whidden dies you can buy Whidden expander balls in various diameters, so you are not limited in that way. Secondly, if you select a bushing that only has the expander doing about .001 of expansion, you should have no problem with necks being pulled crooked, assuming that you use something to lube the neck IDs. For this application something like Imperial dry neck lube would be fine. You can apply it before lubing the outside of the case. The reason that expanders get a bad rap is one piece dies that have excessively small neck IDs. This makes the expander do so much work that the axial pull on the case exceeds the yield strength of the brass in the case shoulder, and it yields asymmetrically, cocking the neck relative to the case body. Also, there is the matter of fellows not bothering to lube the inside of their case necks which makes the situation worse, because of increased friction.

If the cases are over annealed. I would toss them. Also. consider that you need to test a procedure with a small sample before doing it on all of your cases. Sometimes I think that shooters have become anneal happy. Perhaps they do not know that the procedure is not universal among winning long range benchrest shooters.

 

[SGK]

On the annealer, I've spent a lot of time experimenting with times etc. I built the unit and know it well. Of course, even with test cases and good use of Tempilaq it becomes a bit of a crap shoot but I don't think I over-annealed. The evidence to the contrary is that I did not notice the neck alignment problem when I prepped and loaded these rounds after 2x firing (with the 0.336" busing). So a softer neck is a contributing factor. Whether it was too soft is an unknown.

Clearly the principal issue is too much neck reduction in one go when the body and shoulder isn't support by the same die. I can test this a bit more once I get the FL die and intermediary bushing size.

 

[SGK]

@SPJ please detail. I'm happy/keen to learn.

One immediate question: I understood it not a good idea to lube the outside of necks when resizing. Should I be dipping the necks in Imperial Dry Lube? (I think I was doing this previously.)

 

[243winxb]

I had turned the high side of the brass leaving a high side of approx 0.0146" and plenty of low side, unskimmed brass.

This would seem to add to the run out measurement? What condition was the brass in before turning? Fired or factory. Can't be fl sized with your current set up.

I would load and shoot the brass, if it holds the bullet and rounds chamber.

What rifle in 308? Custom , factory? The rifle may not know the difference between good and bad ammo?

I turn my brass so its cut 100% , factory chamber.

 

[SGK]

Skimming the high side makes the runout less, albeit not as good if all the neck is cut. I likely got something like 2/3rds on average.

The brass is 3x fired PPU. It was loaded twice by HPS Target Rifles in the UK and then once by me (0.336" bushing, except for the 6 cases mentioned). I was prepping it for a 4th loading.

Rifle is a Blaser R8 Professional Success in 308 Win (hence it is not cheap/easy to get a custom chamber) as barrels come chambered. It is their Standard barrel but I will likely upgrade to a Semi-Weight or Match barrel when it is done. EDIT: in fact it is not possible to order a custom chamber from Blaser and the Match barrels have the same chamber as the Standard - the chambers and rifling etc are hammered in a single (combined) process.

I was conservative when it came to turning the necks for two reasons: I didn't want to cut it too thin and risk safety (I realise I was being too conservative here when I examined my stack of RWS brass and saw thinner necks) and I was wary that the release dimension was already large.

This was the 6 shot 100 yard group with .335" bushing (44 gr Varget, 168 gr Hornady ELD-M, seated to CBTO of 2.208" which I estimate to be a 50 thou jump). So by no means the sort of quality you guys are used to but not bad for a sporter with a couple of thousand rounds through it (even with one shot I likely pulled a little high). (15x scope.) Target has 1" grid.

 

[SGK]

Finally got pic to load

 

[SGK]

My annealer

 

[D-4297]

Afternoon Gentleman . I'm a new guy to the site , and this is my first post . But I have about eight years familiarity with PPU brass , as I have several Mosin-Nagant custom builds that like the stuff . I'm also a new guy to F and F-tr. ( 3 yrs. ) w/a Kelby .308 Panda .
The composition of PPU brass is much softer than most of the American brass , so it would be very easy to over-anneal it , contributing to the issue . My PPU brass only gets annealed every fourth firing . Ask me how I know this . lol
It does sound as though from the numbers the OP posted , that he has a "No-Turn" neck in his chamber , and PPU brass is notorious for being on the thin side to begin with . About .010-.011 factory .
I did a skim turn of some Win Brass for one of my M-N rifles , and it made the groups horrendously worse . No more neck turning solved the problem .
For my PPU brass , I purchased a Lee F/L die , and sanded the de-capping pin down ( .3055 ) until it gave very little interference to the inside of the neck , and then use a Sinclair expander die with a .307 pin . The I.D. come out at .3065-307 , and also straightened some very tilted necks . And I do use the Imperial Dry lube on the neck , both for F/L , and expanding . Hope these thoughts help the OP with the issue . Sometimes ; less is more , and we tend to over-think , and over-complicate .

 

[SGK]

Hi. My PPU brass is much thicker than that. In fact it is thicker than my RWS brass (recycled hunting cases). I skimmed the high side to about 0.0146". (It didn't appear to be materially different to the Lapua.)

You might be right regarding the annealing. We'll see. I think the principal issue, though, is I'm trying to size the neck too much in one go. I have ordered a Redding Type S FL bushing die (and intermediary bushing) and will try to straighten out the necks. If I can't, lesson learnt.

@243winxb I'd be interested in seeing a photo of what the necks of your cases look like. I'd be worried about getting the die set correctly each time given I have to swap bushings.

 

[Fotheringill]

Question was raised above as to how much of the neck is sized. Not all neck sizing dies with bushings will size the entire neck down to the shoulder. Redding, for example, will not.

Also- how are you measuring the run out? With what tools and how are you doing it? It might be the tool and it might be you.

 

[SGK]

I am using Redding dies and bushings and am aware there is a small portion of the neck that isn't sized. But @243winxb mentioned only sizing half the neck.

It's not the concentricity gauge (21st Century). I've measured before and after. The "after" is visible to the naked eye. No doubt I cocked them up.

 

[Fotheringill]

If it is visible, my narrow well of suggestions is empty.
Brighter folks than I are already in this thread and I suspect they will straighten out the problem (no pun intended).

 

[David101]

My 308 is a custom f class barrel the neck chamber part is 0.342. I use a 336 Redding bushing in a Redding small base body die with the neck bushing. I use the small decapping pin as to not interfere with the neck once it has been sized by the bushing. when the projectile is loaded there is a few thou neck tension and the finished round is about 0.338 at the neck.

The Lee neck die which I also use gives very similar results but is perhaps not as exact when the brass is harder. but it gives very good concentricity.

 

[dkhunt14]

What is runout on bullet with bullet seated? Matt

 

[cw308]

That is thick , I can see 12 x 2 but 15 better check again . No need to change before sizing , how are you cleaning your brass ? The bushing die didn't work for me went back to a standard RCBS Standard Full size die .

 

[SGK]

So your brass is .030??

/2 = 15 thou thick

(Not far off the high side of my PPU which is about 0.0146". Of course, he has a tighter chamber neck dimension.)