RESIZING

[Webster]

6BR Varmint rifle. When a cartridge is fired it conforms to the shape of a precision machined chamber. The body, shoulder and neck should be in perfect alignment. I assume that anything you do with a resizing die and expander ball could only make things worse. If I deprime and reload without any resizing or expander ball and I have good neck tension to hold the bullet and the bolt closes easily wouldn't this make an ideal round? Would the case eventually need to be resized?

 

[RonAKA]

I agree it could work, except for the neck. You have to give the neck some room to open up and release the bullet without building excessive pressure. I believe once you do that the neck will be too large to hold the bullet securely enough for the next load, unless you size it down some.

 

[bozo699]

Webster,
I am not condoning or suggesting this to you @all!! but I recently bought a 22br from a old fella that can't see any more to shoot it has less than .001 more like .0005 clearance between a loaded rounds neck and the chamber (NOT RECOMENDED) but it is shooting well and cases are extracting easily. I take the spent case remove the primer clean primer hole re prime charge and load with out the use of a re sizing die, its a tac driver
Wayne.

 

[Laurie]

wouldn't this make an ideal round? Would the case eventually need to be resized?

Webster, probably 'No' and probably 'Yes'.

A pointer to what provides ultimate accuracy comes from benchrest shooting practice where shooters resize their brass between relays despite running with only 0.001" neck to chamber clearances and necks that are turned to a thickness consistency of 0.0001". You can be pretty sure that rifles capable of winning BR matches have as concentric chambers as current technology can provide too!

There are all sorts of factors involved in these processes and using the fired case as is may not, in fact almost certainly will not, provide the best mix of the amount of neck tension on the bullet, consistent neck tension on the bullet across a batch of loaded rounds, and alignment with the bore centreline.

A much better answer is to:

minimally turn necks to obtain a consistent thickness within each neck and between cases.

use a bushing sizer die, either neck or full-length type, and experiment with bushing sizes to see what amount of neck tension gives best results.

allied to the the use of bushing dies, dispense with expander balls or other forms of neck expansion. However, a sizing-down only regime should only be employed with neck-turned brass, otherwise variations in neck thickness are transferred from the outside of the neck to the inside and the bullet has to swage the inner walls back out on being seated - that's one reason why nearly all 'standard' dies have an expander.

If simply de and repriming, charging and bullet seating gives good enough accuracy in your rifle for you, there's no particular reason to change practices. If you start to have hard chambering and extraction due to brass flow changing the case shape, simply employ a standard FL sizer die or a more specialised 'body' die to size the case body back down and re-set the shoulder slightly further back.

Laurie,
York, England

 

[brxbrad]

+1 on that Laurie.

 

[RonAKA]

Another point to consider is that in reality the chamber will not be perfectly concentric - body to neck, neck to bore. So when you rechamber a fired cartridge it may not fit all that well, unless you mark every one for angular position in the chamber and index them back to that same position for every firing.

 

[BoydAllen]

Factory barrel? What dies? If custom barrel, neck diameter? To answer your question directly, why would you want to shoot a load that was at such a low pressure that you could get away with not sizing, especially considering that the most accurate rifles in the world are generally fed FL sized ammo. (Of course the dies are custom fit.) I have a friend that shoots a very accurate 6BR at over 3,500 FPS with 70 gr. BlitzKings, into the twos and low threes. Obviously, he FL sizes. At that pressure, there is no other option.

 

[Link]

I SEE THIS IS A OLD POST I found it on search. However I am thinking of not resizing my 6bri brass every time, only when the round is chambering or extracting a little hard. The reason for this is my resizing die is working a little harder than my other caliber dies. I will wait until the end of the season and send the die in for a polishing with a few fired non sized cases.
I am starting out measuring bolt lift with a fish scale. With a empty chamber the bolt lift is 4#. A case that has been FL body size bolt lifts at 4# and a fired non sized case lifts at 6#.
I have a 30br that only needed FL body resizing like after 6 firings. I started resizing after every firing because I read that I should. I never saw any difference in accuracy for me.
other thoughts?

 

[Dusty Stevens]

If your case will actually hold a bullet without sizing your necks are too thick and soon youll have an extreme pressure situation. If you fire a case and a bullet will not slip into the neck you need to turn your necks

 

[Webster]

If your case will actually hold a bullet without sizing your necks are too thick and soon youll have an extreme pressure situation. If you fire a case and a bullet will not slip into the neck you need to turn your necks

My original post was 2011.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Still relevant today. I didnt bring it to the top

 

[K22]

6BR Varmint Rifle - this says to me that this is a hunting rifle to be used for hunting.

I don't understand the aversion to sizing your cases especially for a hunting rifle. Unless you're going to test each loaded round for ease of chambering in your rifle; you're eventually doing to get to the point that they won't chamber. You don't want to find this out in the field and ruin a hunting day.

If you full size properly using a slight shoulder bump, i.e. .001 to .002" you will have rounds that chamber. This will not reduce accuracy or case life but will ensure functionality which is critically important for a hunting rifle.

 

[Richard Coody]

I SEE THIS IS A OLD POST I found it on search. However I am thinking of not resizing my 6bri brass every time, only when the round is chambering or extracting a little hard. The reason for this is my resizing die is working a little harder than my other caliber dies. I will wait until the end of the season and send the die in for a polishing with a few fired non sized cases.
I am starting out measuring bolt lift with a fish scale. With a empty chamber the bolt lift is 4#. A case that has been FL body size bolt lifts at 4# and a fired non sized case lifts at 6#.
I have a 30br that only needed FL body resizing like after 6 firings. I started resizing after every firing because I read that I should. I never saw any difference in accuracy for me.
other thoughts?

with any cartridge that harrell's makes a die for not resizing every firing makes no sense. send them three pieces of fully fireformed and not resized brass and let the pick a die that closely fits your chamber. $75 well spent. then you can play around with neck bushings until you find the neck tension your rifle likes.

no downside to tbis path.