Partial Neck Resizing

[USAPatriot]

Is partial neck resizing a problem?

Friday I took the 6BR out to the range and started breaking the bbl in, putting 70 rounds through it. It did well, but that's for a later post.

The Lapua brass I used was unworked except for deburring and chamfering. After firing the neck dia was .278. I tumbled them the other day and today resized the necks with a .268 bushing in a Redding FL die.,Oddly, the neck dia is now .269)
Since I'd not trimmed the brass before I loaded them I found that when I resized the necks there was no way to resize the entire neck even with the bushing bottomed out. It resized all but about a few hundredths at most. Is that going to be a problem? I'm going to be shooting 80's and 90's so I'm pretty sure the slugs won't be seated into the unsized area. I checked a handful of the part-resized cases and all chamber on an easily closed bolt so that's not an issue.

I'm going to trim these cases anyhow, but if this isn't an issue there's no point in in redoing the work even though it will only take a few minutes at most. I'd appreciate your thoughts. -Rod-

 

[tightneck]

It's not nessecary to size the entire neck. The bushing dies I have used are Wilson, Redding and custom made. None of them will size the full length of the neck, matter of fact, Wilson dies are not adjustable and only size about half of the neck.

 

[USAPatriot]

Does everyone else have that same experience? -Rod-

 

[jb1000br]

I size the whole neck with the Harrell die...no reason not to IMO.

JB

 

[tightneck]

JB is correct, there is no reason not to, but if your die won't size the whole neck, don't worry to much about it.

 

[FatBoy]

Redding bushing dies, as least all of mine, will not size the entire neck.

I size as far down as I can go, but a very good F Open shooter friend of mine does only .1",1/3) of the neck. He cut his group size by 70% at 600yards. Now, that hasn't worked with me,, but ther's a few of the f guys doing this now,and it seems to work very well for them.

Chris...

 

[USAPatriot]

Well, even after trimming today I couldn't have sized the rest of the neck. I'd have to shorten the case down to about 1.500 to do that so I just let it be.

As for the shooting on Friday, it went very well. The barrel broke in very easily and seeing how this was my first aftermarket barrel,28" Douglas #8) I was astounded at how easily it cleaned up, even though I'd heard about it numerous times. Just like glass, but even then after 70 rounds I was sick to death of cleaning that gun.

The Varget rounds didn't do well, 31.0gr and 31.5gr under Nosler 80's even with ES's of around 10-12fps. The groups evolved as the barrel broke in but I never did get anything under and inch and a half.

Benchmark was a whole different story even though the velocities were more or less the same. Nothing printed over an inch with 5 different loads and the best of the day was this group, two sighters on top, 5 rounds on the bottom.

I suspect I could have done 1/2 that with a decent scope. My Rem700VS has a Weaver T-36 on it. This gun just has a Simmons 6-20x44 and has crosshairs like fenceposts. I couldn't actually see bullet holes on the target and was shooting POI=POA, a mistake probably. At any rate, it would have been nice to bring home a one-holer on the first trip out. The rounds I shot with N-133 were interesting too. I got slight cratering at 30.0gr but the slug went exactly where it was intended at 3261fps. -Rod-

 

[tenring]

If only part of the neck is sized, I would think the unsized portion would fit the chamber tightly, resulting in very concentric centering of the bullet in chamber. Comments?

 

[Sako6555]

I deliberately size just the length of the neck which I want to hold the bullet shank. It idea is that the unsized portion of the neck is held concentric to the chamber neck area.

 

[tightneck]

I personally dont want any brass touching the chamber walls. I just want the headstamp against the boltface and the bullet in the lands. I have gone away from neck sizing for this reason. Now I FL size just enough to get no feel chambering,with the cocking assembly removed from the bolt). This "free floats" the case in the chamber until firing with no chance of cocking it off to one side.

 

[USAPatriot]

If only part of the neck is sized, I would think the unsized portion would fit the chamber tightly, resulting in very concentric centering of the bullet in chamber. Comments?

I didn't see it that way when I checked to see that the brass would fit the chamber. It slid right in and the bolt locked down very easily with no pressure.

I don't see how it's possible for a piece of brass to free float in a chamber. Perhaps with a shellholder for a boltface. -Rod-