Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters how to outside neck turn

can anyone tell me the best way to neck turn brass ,up where the neck meets the shoulder?
I really don't like an abrupt "edge", no matter how slight.
In other words,how do you go from taking off a few thousands, to not,without an edge,or lip?

I've been using a neck turner from 21st Century. The leading edge of its cutter is angled to match the shoulder angle of the brass. If I do things right I can basically just skim the color off of the shoulder section. A fingernail won't catch the transition between turned and not turned sections.

+1

I use a RCBS neck turner.It also has inside neck reamers.Slicker than snot.You can set it to just hit the high spots.

Here's what I use.


http://www.forsterproducts.com/clie..._Held_Outside_Neck_Turner_HOT100-001.pdf

You better cut all your brass to the same length first or you cant control the length of your neck cutting length.
I am a little different. I fireform first with a fast powder and a wax plug. I get a better job that way. All the shoulders are the same height.

K&M Tools has the slickest outside neck turner I've used. I've used a half dozen of them over the years, and settled on the K&M Neck Turner. The bit is angled to match the shoulder so you don't cut into the shoulder and thin the brass too much there. The pilot also cuts to remove the "dreaded donut" that gets pushed to the inside when you fire that piece of brass.

If you use an expansion mandrel before turning any donut will be pushed to the outside to be turned off by the usual cutter.

Have you tried a turner from 21st Century Shooting or PMA Tool?

I use the Sinclair and the cutter has a bevel that matches the shoulder and takes off this ridge you are talking about. .

When I started neck-turning I had some great info/help here on the campfire.
I also found this article very helpful:
http://www.6mmbr.com/neckturningbasics.html

I use the Sinclair kit and it works well for me.

I'm favorably impressed with the in depth knowledge and expertise. As has been knows for a long time the competition bench rest shooters are far more explicit and meticulous than the average hunter. I'll say also, as a prelude to my comments, that I am schooling my Grandson and this is certainly on the curriculum.

I found the comments by some neck turning manufacturers very interesting as they pertain to concentricity of neck thickness, release on one side and so forth.

I measures a series of my fired cases with my digital caliper and found that many are actually tapered. Thinner forward and thicker near the shoulder. Using the commercial external neck trimmer uniformly trims out the taper.

Naturally we have thousands of cases and cartridges. And many conditions, new cases, once fired, many times fired, stretching and deforming the brass all sorts of pressures extruding. Thusly we have untold numbers of conditions.

When you use the commercial case trimmers what is your criteria. How much do you set your trimmer for to leave that annulus ?

When you trim a case, then fire it is one sequence.

When you fire that same case a second time it has been fire formed - MAYBE yes maybe no. It depends on the case, caliber, load, bullet, pressure - whether or not you have stayed within the "spring back" limits or exceeded the elastic limits and permanently deformed the case.

Just curious - is there a general consensus as to how much to trim and how much to leave in thickness? Or is this individual, opinion, experience and preference ?

If your rifle was cut with a tight neck, you turn to match those dimensions.

If your barrel was cut with a standard chamber:
Measure the necks thicknesses on a sample of your brass. If tolerances appear tight, turn necks to the minimum measured. If tolerances are loose, first measure all your brass and cull those on the small side before you proceed to cut to the minimum thickness retained.

If you have a tight neck, you will have to turn before the first firing, other wise I prefer to turn after the first firing and neck sizing with Forster dies so all the eccentricity is on the outside of the neck.

I started out with the Forster turner many years ago, and it's worked well on a bunch of cases, including Lapuas for my 6mm PPC bench rifle. The circular cutting head will take a neck right down to where it starts curving into the neck if you adjust it correctly.

In recent years have also been using the Sinclair tool with .224 and 6mm rounds, which does an excellent job, as bea175 and others have pointed out.

A helpful technique with typical hunting rifles is to only turn the thick side of the neck just enough to even thickness out to within .001". This leaves plenty of neck thickness to grip the bullet consistently.

+ 1 on the Sinclair tool; I've had one for 12 or 13 years now. It's called an NT-2000. Don't know if that one is still current production but it's a fine tool. Currently doing the necks on fifty 7mm-08 cases reformed from once fired Federal Premium .308 cases. Getting good results with just a little cleaning up of the necks.

MD, when turning a batch of cases, do you turn them down until the worst case evens out to within .001", or do you adjust the cutter for different cases? I've always cut them all the same thickness, assuming that would give the best consistency in neck tension, but haven't done much experimenting with it.

You want all the cases to be the same so you have even neck tension.

I don't bother neck-turning most brass, just cases for super accurate rifles, and then buy brass that's usually really uniform in the first place--or, if that's not possible, sort for relatively uniform case necks.

Brass with significantly heavier necks on one side (say .002" or more) usually has case bodies that are also "lopsided," and tend to curve slightly after being fired or sized. It doesn't help very much to turn the necks of that sort of brass. As a result, the necks I bother turning only have to be skimmed on one side in order to get them under .001" variation.

I turned a batch of "utility grade" RP 308's to very uniform wall thickness before sizing them down to 7mm08. Loaded rounds had very low runout. These were fired in a Rem Model 7 with a factory soda straw barrel.

Was that like putting 115/145 avgas in a lawn mower?

Not if it shoots tiny groups!

mathman,

I dunno!

Did you by chance compare the accuracy from the neck-turned brass from brass simply sorted for relatively uniform neck thickness, or unsorted brass? Have seen some pretty good accuracy from "utility grade" brass.