Love the way my new 6x47 is shooting and don't want to change anything now
but for my next barrel, was thinking of skimming the necks a little to uniform them
and get a little more consistent neck tension.
Question, I've seen multiple ways of doing it.
Do you turn before sizing the neck down?
Do you size the neck down and them turn them?
I've seen, neck down, fire form and then turn them.
I would think, turn them then size the neck down
to help avoid the extra brass buildup in the neck shoulder area.
CASE FORMING TIP: For those people who use .308 "Palma" brass and neck them down to 7mm, 6.5mm or even 6mm, there is a way to make perfect brass. Many people consider the S/R Primer pockets in the "Palma" brass to be superior to "regular" L/R primer brass. So if you are making 7mm-08, .260, .243 OR their Ackley Improved derivatives, this regimen will save you time and make excellent brass.
1.) Starting with the .308 Palma brass, run it up into your expander die WHILE AT .30 Cal. Turn the case (spin the case) 1/3 turn and run it up into the mandrel again and once again. You will feel the brass start to go up into the die easier. This has now pushed the brass "imperfections / variations" to the outside of the case neck wall.
2.) Turn the necks down to the desired neck wall thickness for your chamber. Of course if you have a really tight neck chamber, you can only turn down so far. I have found I can turn 2 thousandths off the neck wall with no problem at all.
3.) Take a Redding 7mm-08 BODY DIE and run the freshly turned .308 brass into this die. This will make a PERFECTLY formed piece of 7mm-08 brass!
4.) If you are going to make a .260REM, instead of a 7mm-08, then
after you have run the turned .308 brass into the 7mm-08 body die, you now simply change body dies to a .260 Rem and run the newly formed 7mm-08 brass into the .260 BODY DIE. This will make perfectly formed .260Rem brass.
5.) If you are going all the way down to .243 repeat step #4 with a .243 body die.
6.) Now if you are making 7mm-08 brass, you select the appropriate bushing for the neck wall thickness so you can ONCE AGAIN expand it in the 7mm expander mandrel. You would also do the same thing for the .260 or .243 you are making. This will size the neck down to a size appropriate to use the expander mandrel to push any imperfections back out to the outside.
7.) At this point you once again measure the neck wall thickness and turn the neck wall down to your desired thickness. REMEMBER: whenever you neck down a case, your neck wall thickness will grow. The further you reduce the caliber, the thicker the neck wall will become. Once you run the brass into your bushing die, you will also create a small "exterior doughnut" at the case neck / shoulder junction. This needs to be turned off too as you turn your necks down to their desired thickness.
8.) IF you are not going to make an Ackley out of your newly made cases, you should anneal them. Once annealed, run them back thru your mandrel. REMEMBER, heat causes metal to move. Your case necks will probably move. A mandrel will straighten that out. You can now load this formed brass for competition! ANOTHER TIP: with virgin brass, always use Imperial Dry Neck Lube PRIOR to charging the case and seating the bullet.
9.) NOTE: If you ARE going to fireform into an Ackley, DO NOT ANNEAL and DO NOT USE DRY NECK LUBE! You want the bullet long and held in place firmly to hold the case head directly against the boltface. Fireforming like this will keep you from having any headspace problems.
10.) Once your brass has been formed to your chamber after the first firing, now anneal and you will have excellent brass.
This has worked time and again for me. It is a tried and true process. I know it sounds L-O-N-G but I did 130 pieces of Palma brass and formed them into .260 in about 5 hours. The brass is as perfect as any brass can be made!
Benjamin Steinsholt
This how you properly neck-down brass. This is going down from .308 to where ever you want to. The "Principle and Steps" are the same. Follow them and you will form perfectly necked down brass all the time.
