Neck tension problem

[DLT]

I assume your neck turning. 1 thou is a tiny amount to measure. Personally, I don't think cartridges were ever supposed to be made to dimensions accurate to 1 thou. Maybe 1 thou variation is OK??? Erick Cortina has a video where he anneals brass then measures seating force with a pressure gauge. With cases all annealed the same way he sees a seating pressure range of about 10-20 lbs. Check out the video. A lot to learn from it. There are probably more important things than 1thou case dimensions to improve accuracy. I'm sure I will get flamed for my comments.

I like to look at the video's on UTube by the worlds best shooters and learn from them. Ignore everyone else. The top shooters spend a lot of time and money on their sport. I wouldn't be surprised if many spend $10-20 thou a year on their sport. You have to decide how much time and money you are willing to spend to enjoy shooting. You are not going to be competitive by being obsessed with case dimensions.

I have reached a level that would never be competitive and I am happy with what I can do. I shoot better than most of the average shooters at the range. Varmints don't evaluate a shooters ability.

I’m not neck turning. Hope to never get into that practice.

 

[Webster]

I’m not neck turning. Hope to never get into that practice.

Neck turning isn't a big deal. Just cost a few bucks to buy the tool.

 

[searcher]

If you really want uniform necks, you will never get them without turning them. It is an easy task. The tools can be bought pretty reasonably in cost. That said, depending on how many firings you have on the cases, you may have the formations of doughnuts inside the base of your necks. They eventually come around and the first sign is usually on just a few cases. This is because it is impossible for the manufacturers to make the uniformity of each case exactly the same and some cases will show it before others. I assume you are using an annealing machine that will provide timed annealing to make every case the same? If not, they will come out much different from one another than when not using one - and even then, there are differences in how each case is annealed due to the differences in wall thickness of the cases, etc.

Using an expander takes cases that are slightly imperfect and makes them more uniform as to ID. They can help to "iron" out" the tight cases and make them more uniform to the looser ones. The culprit is often, especially on cases which have been fired several times, thicker brass forming inside the base of the necks to create that doughnut. You won't see or measure this easily using measuring tools. If you don't want to turn necks, perhaps another option to test your cases and make more uniform would to be to use an inside neck reamer, though you would need a Wilson or other precision trimmer and the reamer to do this effectively, I think. Of course, there is the Autodod machine - but it is a cost-prohibitive machine for most shooters. There may be some cheaper tools for doing this that I am not aware of offhand.

Feeling variations in seating pressure when using brass without turned necks is normal. They are not all the same - even the high-end brass. Even with turned necks, doughnut formation or slight differences in flame temperature and dwell time when annealing will make a few cases react differently.

Perhaps your least expensive option of all is to mark those offending few cases with a felt marker and use as foulers. If many more cases start to exhibit increased seating pressure, I'd be inclined to attribute to the doughnuts and decide whether to address the problem with a neck turner, inside neck reamer or new brass. - or just run an inside neck expander for some non-permanent improvement, as the cases will continue to get worse id that is the problem. Try dropping a bullet into the fired cases, one by one. You will see which cases are problematic, based on how far they will go into the necks - or not.

 

[DLT]

If you really want uniform necks, you will never get them without turning them. It is an easy task. The tools can be bought pretty reasonably in cost. That said, depending on how many firings you have on the cases, you may have the formations of doughnuts inside the base of your necks. They eventually come around and the first sign is usually on just a few cases. This is because it is impossible for the manufacturers to make the uniformity of each case exactly the same and some cases will show it before others. I assume you are using an annealing machine that will provide timed annealing to make every case the same? If not, they will come out much different from one another than when not using one - and even then, there are differences in how each case is annealed due to the differences in wall thickness of the cases, etc.

Using an expander takes cases that are slightly imperfect and makes them more uniform as to ID. They can help to "iron" out" the tight cases and make them more uniform to the looser ones. The culprit is often, especially on cases which have been fired several times, thicker brass forming inside the base of the necks to create that doughnut. You won't see or measure this easily using measuring tools. If you don't want to turn necks, perhaps another option to test your cases and make more uniform would to be to use an inside neck reamer, though you would need a Wilson or other precision trimmer and the reamer to do this effectively, I think. Of course, there is the Autodod machine - but it is a cost-prohibitive machine for most shooters. There may be some cheaper tools for doing this that I am not aware of offhand.

Feeling variations in seating pressure when using brass without turned necks is normal. They are not all the same - even the high-end brass. Even with turned necks, doughnut formation or slight differences in flame temperature and dwell time when annealing will make a few cases react differently.

Perhaps your least expensive option of all is to mark those offending few cases with a felt marker and use as foulers. If many more cases start to exhibit increased seating pressure, I'd be inclined to attribute to the doughnuts and decide whether to address the problem with a neck turner, inside neck reamer or new brass. - or just run an inside neck expander for some non-permanent improvement, as the cases will continue to get worse id that is the problem. Try dropping a bullet into the fired cases, one by one. You will see which cases are problematic, based on how far they will go into the necks - or not.

I do not have an annealing machine I do my work in a dark room counting the seconds till I see a dark red glow on the mouth which is usually 6 seconds with this Peterson brass. No it’s not exact down to the millisecond. I’m going to try different methods 1. using an expander and 2. Not annealing and see if I can tell any difference. I’ll probably have to buy another bushing to squeeze my necks small enough to my expander to work. When I look inside the case mouths yes some has more carbon than others and looks patchy. Dont know if that’s an issue. I would say that should be felt in the press, but .001 thou difference in neck diameter coming straight out of the bushing die between .268 and .269 can be felt also. I need to drop back to 100yds and do some testing.

If it was a variation in neck wall thick mess would the od not measure different with a bullet seated ??

 

[searcher]

Try doing that simple bullet drop into the fired case neck. That will usually show you which cases are the ones to be wary of - and to the extent of how different they really are. Have you tried using Tempilaq liquid on your necks when annealing as you do? I'd be sure to brush out your necks (at a minimum) after annealing in that fashion. I used to anneal with the old socket and drill method many years back. Was very effective in controlling neck splits - but gave terrible consistency.

 

[varget204]

After annealing & resizing using one shot lube inside case neck, & trimming I run All cases on my RCBS prep center brush , if I don't have had a lot more inconsistencies in seating & on the targets