Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Opinions on neck sizing 223

Opinions on neck sizing vs full length on 223 or any caliber at that

I neck size for almost all of my calibers.. The only hitch is with more than one rifle in a given caliber, brass must be kept sorted for the individual rifle..

Neck size here too, for most including 223. Lee Collet dies are your friend.

Neck size for my .223 Remington Cooper using the Lee Collet Die. Works great and have had zero problems with chambering. Brass has very little runout in the neck and I use a Lee bullet seater that gives very good overall runout when measuring the loaded case/bullet.

Never again...

FL Forester, keep headspace where I want it. NS is the easiest way I know to make crooked ammo.

All my .223s are semi autos. I full length size for for four of them. The varmint gun gets full length body sized and a Lee collet neck size.

Lee Collet die for neck sizing and a body die for bumping the shoulder back when required....for my 223s and most other cartridges....except the 30/30 and 444...

Yes and no. What kind of neck sizer were you using?

Full length size all 223/556 semi auto guns.
Neck size all 223/556 bolt guns.

I partially full length resize with the expander stem removed, then as a second step I expand on the downstroke. This works well for me. I haven't really felt the need to try the Lee Collet die, even though I'm sure they work. I'm just an old dude who keeps doing what I know works ok for me.

That's usually a good way to size straight cases. The possible disadvantage, depending of course on the dimensions of the die and the thickness of the brass, is cold working the case necks more than necessary.

RCBS & Redding. The RCBS FL Competition sizer and 7/8" O-ring combo has been perfect. The seater sucks and went Forster.

The conventional style neck sizers often do cause trouble.

Yeah, I think we had a pretty extensive thread in here awhile back about NS, headspace and run out. Since then I've been FL and putting headspace exactly where I want each load. Results have been excellent across the board. I actually ended up pulling some 260 that was NS only and had crappy runout. Ran it through Forsters and the results were much better.

Straight ammo and headspace matter!

Most of the time I hit the necks with a collet die and bump shoulders a thousandth or two with a body die.

Rolling some twice fired 223 Lapua as we "speak". Neck runout is < 0.001. I be a happy.....

So neck sizing will give you concentricity problems? But you get longer brass life

Improperly set up, yes. As for brass life, someone else might need to chime in. My experience/understanding is that overworking brass is it's demise. To me, that means bumping the shoulders back to virgin specs. The 223 Lapua brass I'm using is 3.457 at the shoulder when new. Fired out of my chamber (Tikka 1:8, if that matters) it becomes 3.460. I resize it to 3.459.

I switched to the FL competition die and Forster seater then saw my ammo getting straight and shooting better.

Switched to Forster dies in everything else, did the same method, and saw better results each time.

I find it especially important with 7Mag which stretches like hell. Even though it headspaces off the belt, no sense in moving the shoulder a mile when you don't need to.

The problem with over-working brass when using neck-sizing dies doesn't usually occur due to bumping the shoulder back occasionally, unless it's "bumped" so far cases stretch on firing.

Instead the big over-working problem occurs in the neck with conventional dies, whether neck or FL, because the neck's worked twice, once when being sized down and once when being being pulled over the expander ball. Which is why necks crack, unless we anneal them now and then.

A Lee collet die only works the neck once during sizing, as does a Redding bushing die if an expander ball isn't used. Which is why I don't use an expander with bushing dies. Either will allow brass to be fired more times before necks start cracking.

I full length size everything, especially hunting rounds. I like them to slither right into the chamber!



Accuracy wise the full length sized stuff still shoots MUCH better groups than I'm capable of, so theres not much else to tell....