Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats What's a "No Turn Neck"?

And what does a .290" neck mean? I am getting ready to order my first custom barrel and not sure what I should specify.

I'm certainly not as seasoned as others here but I'll try to help.

"No turn neck" ,as I understand it, means that you will not have to neck turn (process in which you use a tool to remove brass off the case neck to a uniform thickness) your brass for the gun in question. .290" would be the diameter at which the neck would need to be turned to work properly in a gun that specifies .290" neck.

That's just my interpretation however. I don't turn necks on my cases. If you are building a custom for hunting I don't think you need or want something that needs to be neck turned. Others opinions will vary so hopefully others will chime in here with greater knowledge than mine.


Nail

Most reloaders agree that a precise fit between the outside diameter of the neck of the brass and the chamber wall is important for fine accuracy. Many benchrest but few hunting rounds require "turning" the necks, that is, using a small blade, kinda like a lathe to take a few thousands off the outside of the neck to make it fit precisely and uniform the outside diameter of the neck. These are called neck turning tools and can be purchased at midway or sinclair. Factory chambers are slightly larger because they are made to shoot different ammo of slightly different neck sizes and must be able to accomodate all sizes. A .290 neck measures .290 inches outside to outside and if the factory brass is say .295, it would have to be turned and .005 shaved off to make it fit.
Clear as mud??

Seems every one, save a few, have to go through the neck-turning phase in their reloading and rifle building. There was a time when I would advocate it, simply to make sure that the person doing the neck turning learned a hard lesson......

If you enjoy reloading and sitting at the bench for hours on end, trimming cases, turning necks and trickling each charge more than you enjoy shooting, by all means get a tight neck.

If you like shooting bugholes and spending more time doing the shooting, and less time doing the reloading, I'd advise that you get a rifle setup with a tight headspace, kiss the lands, and proceed to have a ball.

If all things are square and concentric with the chamber, crown, barrel, and bolt, as well as a light crush-fit on the headspace and having the bullet of choice seated to just kissing the lands by a couple thousands, the rifle will shoot better than the guy pulling the trigger 99% of the time.

If any of the above is not right, they don't make a neck-turning tool that'll correct it.

HGB,
A no-turn neck is usually a "wildcat" or a "custom" sort of deal. I am in Matt's camp on this. I ordered a reamer for my 22BR and specified the neck not require turning. I told Pacific I would be using Norma or Lapua brass and they went from there.
If you already have your brass, and supposedly your dies, or a NECK SIZER in the right caliber, you can get a ballpark by taking a case, sizing it and then seating a bullet, then measuring the OD of the brass around the bullet.
In my case, I think my reamer is a 256 neck. I use a 248 bushing to size, which gives me somewhere in the 251 252 zone for a finished, loaded diameter. That's four thousandths which means the brass is worked little. Yet the potential of having the bullet NOT release is pretty minimal, you really would have to be lazy and never bother checking your brass flow.
Some people want the fitted neck, but unless you are national-level benchrest, I don't see the point. Setting up like Matt says is good to go for 99 percent of even us gunniest of gunnies.

I started my gunsmithing career as a competitive benchrest shooter and, at the time, few gunsmiths would have recommended a no-turn (conventional) neck. In fact, the fitted neck, with which neck sizing was unnecessary, was becoming quite popular (this in the mid-to-late seventies). I ran afitted neck in my 6x47 and it worked well. When I built my first 6PPC, I built it with a .264" neck which was a bit large to alow a fitted neck but which was perfect for the dies I was using. The sizer sized the neck to .261 and it worked fine. The necks were turned to produce a loaded cartridge neck of .2625". At this thickness, not all of the necks would clean up (about 20% were culls) so, when Bonanza started producing sizers with a .258 or .259 inch neck, I got one and turned a batch of necks to .2605 loaded diameter.
I shot both batches of of brass in my 264 neck throughout what was, for me, a winning season. When the dust had settled at the end, the loose fitted necks had produced a lower seaon aggregate than had the tight ones. I hasten to add, the difference was almost insignificant; something on the order of .002" over the season. However, the aggregate records I shot that year were shot with the loose necks and the smallest groups were fired with the loose necks. I did later buy a chambering reamer with a .262" neck but this was more to satisfy customers than for myself and I continued to build my own rifles with the .264 reamer.
Habits are hard to break though, and I still cut chambers in all calibers (for BR, mind you) which required neck turning. A .334 in the 308, a .244 in the 223. Necks sizes which made neck turning necessary inspite of the fact that I turned them enough to provide plenty of clearance (in BR circles, .0015 is plenty of clearance).
I'm happy to say, my BR indoctrination never carried over into my hunting rifle building and I was perfectly happy with SAAMI spec chambers and, in fact, thought the production of excessively tight necked chambers was, in a word, stupid. When I started to shoot "F" class though, my BR roots bit me again and I built my 6.5x55 with a .290 neck with necessitated neck turning. It worked well and the chamber size was ideal for my sizer which sized to about .286". The rifle shot well and I scored well and was happy with it. The neck turning was necessary, or so I figured, to even up the mildly eccentric necks of the Winchester brass I was using.
A fellow competitor, perhaps impressed with the way my rifle was shooting, had me build him one just the same, with the same chamber dimensions. It wasn't long before he got pretty sick of turning necks and asked if I would open the neck up for him. I did so; opening it to standard dimension so he could use his Lapua brass, unturned. He reported no change whatsoever in accuracy.
With one of my own match rifles in 308, I also found no difference in performance. On top of this, the darn thing would still shoot ten shot groups well under 1/2 moa even using brass with necks which were measurably eccentric. I have now come to believe that for anything except short range BR, neck turning is of little benefit and may, in some cases, be detrimental. I'm not even all that sure about it's necessity in the short range BR arena. Certainly, the production of a hunting rifle with a tight neck is pure foolishness.
The "no turn" necks for match rifles are generally a little tighter than one might find in a hunting rifle. Especially in specialty chamberings like the 6BR or the 6.5x47 Lapua. They do, however, allow the use of unturned necks and avoid the potential problems associated with them (the dreaded donut being at the top of the list). GD

With the WW brass that I've been buying for the last couple of years I could run that chamber with cases right out of the bag. That stuff is thin.

The question really starts with a tight neck chamber or a standard neck chamber. What kind of clearance are you looking for with a tight neck chamber? It requires you to have a ball mic a neck turning tool, know your neck dia of your chamber and be able to identify the heel dia of the flat base bullet you want to set up the brass for. I shoot some barrels with .0005" clearance on a side for a total of .001". If you are shooting a standard neck chamber then you do not want to turn necks, you will only add more slop to your loaded rounds. The real key to accuracy is in the seating die. You want the straights ammo you can make, never increase the run out, you need the best dies you can find. This of course is assuming that a top notch gunsmith did the chambering in a first class custom barrel and you have a top notch action and the stock is well bedded. There are many pieces to the accuracy puzzle and they all cost big bucks. Is all of this important for a hunter? Let your own happiness be the judge, and pocket book.