Neck Sizing- How deep?

[Fotheringill]

I have the following:

Savage 12 F/TR in .223
RCBS Neck Sizing Die
75 gr A-Max

I have reloaded 100 RWS cases with neck sizing 6 times, trimmed once.
I use Imperial Wax on the neck area only and the graphite dry dip for the inside of the mouth.

On my 7th go around, it is extremely difficult to lift the arm of the press to get the shell free. I backed off on the die to where there is no real force needed to lower the ram out of the way but it appears from a faint ring at the tip of the outside of the case mouth that the die has resized only the first 1/16" or so of the case neck. There is now no "pop" or truly, any force at all required to disengage.

Am I too short or is there somewhat of a standard "half way down on the neck" that is suggested?

Any and all guidance would be appreciated.

 

[Egg]

Do you anneal? I have spoken with some wise ol' men on this site and did a search on this subject and I got everything from seat into the whole neck to only need to seat deep enough to hold your projectile! Then neck tension comes into play. I figure you just have to experiment, but dont change more than one thing at a time or you wont know what change effected the round.

Egg

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Sounds to me like your necks have gotten too thick and since you backed the die off its not gonna size down as far obviously so you may wanna try a fresh piece of brass and see what happens

 

[rmist]

Might want to full length size your brass....I can't get that many firing from a custom chamber in my F TR 223 rig. I full length every time and also anneal.

 

[Fotheringill]

No problem with fresh brass.

I do not anneal. Rather than die alone, I have bowed to my wife's wishes on certain things, one being no blowtorches or ovens and the like in the house. I started reloading about six weeks ago and she was none to happy with sixteen pounds of powder in the basement. She asked me where that was going to be stored and did not take kindly to my response that I will keep it on the oil burner box to keep moisture away from the contents. Woman has no sense of humor.

I was figuring that if only the 1/16" is holding the bullet in, that I would try a few rounds like that unless I am told that I am going to screw up the chamber and/or barrel. I will full size a few this evening and see what happens with the press.

 

[Homerange]

I have reloaded 100 RWS cases with neck sizing 6 times, trimmed once.
I use Imperial Wax on the neck area only and the graphite dry dip for the inside of the mouth.

Check you are not getting a build up of wax and graphite in the die.
I don't understand why you'd want/need to use both, just asking. :-\

Surely graphite on it's own would be fine.

 

[noload]

Expander hung up on donuts ??

 

[calgarycanada]

Expander hung up on donuts ??

This is more then likely ^^^^

 

[Webster]

Lube the case body. Not sure but you must be sizing the body. If the die was only contacting the neck it should take very little force. Try the simple things first. Cannot believe you didn't try lube on the case body.

 

[CharlieNC]

Get a Lee Collet Neck die and problems solved.

 

[Witchhunter]

If it is neck donuts, an inside neck reamer will fix that.

 

[savagedasher]

Try taking the expander ball off . If that cures the problem you have a donut problem. Larry

 

[TikkaSporter]

take a bullet and try pushing it into the mouth of your fired, but unsized brass. Does it hang up or do you feel resistance when the bullet gets to the neck-shoulder junction? If so, you have a donut problem.

 

[Tuxedo007]

Sounds to me like your necks have gotten too thick and since you backed the die off its not gonna size down as far obviously so you may wanna try a fresh piece of brass and see what happens

+1 . I have been unable to obtain that many neck sizings without resizing the entire case! Also, I would only use one lube. I have some .223 cases that have been reloaded several times! However, before I got anywhere close to 6 or 7 loadings with only neck sizing, I had to at least partially resize the entire case so the rounds would feed & chamber w/o excessive force!

Good Luck!
Tuxedo007