Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles What's your new brass prep method?

Hey guys, just interested in everyone's opinion on new brass prep for a hunting rig - no neck turning. Been covered a zillion times I guess but what the hell.
I've been just chamfering the case mouth and then running an expander ball through the necks. Then load up.
Haven't had too much drama with runout but would using a carbide expander mandrel (.002 under caliber diameter) in a floating die - instead of the expander ball - be more likely to give me a straight as possible neck with consistant bullet tension round to round?
I'm sure I read about that method somewhere but can't find it again.
Edit to ad that in my case I'm talking .260 and 30.06 Lapua brass.

What I do: (I mostly use RP brass)

Run all brass over and expander ball to round them out.
Sort for case neck thickness. I generally perge all above .001 variance.
Uniform promer pockets.
Chamfer

What I might do:

Initial trim before loading.
Debur flash holes.


Notes:

The above assumes I use cartridge specific brass. If I use .308 brass to make 7-08 rounds, there are other steps to set the headspace.

I load and go with new brass to basically fireform to my chamber. After that, the expnader button goes away and I minimally size from there with dies I have set up and tested to minimize runout. I also trim at this point.

I work in small batches of 50 generally, so I don't view uniforming primer pockets and removing burs as laborious. It's simply a once and done deal.

Run them through a Lee Collet Neck sizing die, chamfer neck inside and out then load up. I'll spot check flash hole on batch to see if that needs done.

I 'match' prep all my brass. After sorting neck thickness to within .0015", start prep.

On new brass, uniform primer pockets and round neck.

Fire form.

Trim brass to uniform lengths and chamfer necks. Deburr flash holes. Weight sort to �3%. Size.

Load and go shootin'.

Run over expander, chamfer inside, primer, powder, bullet, shoot

I see several people mentioning chamfering without trimming. Am I getting this correct? I have never chamfered unless I trimmed. miles

I very lightly chamfer new brass just to knock the edge off, I use the VLD tool.

Yes, IME, using a carbide expander mandrel works much better than the factory supplied expander ball in a standard FL sizing die. I pulled the expander balls and stems out of my dies a long time ago and leave them in the box. The FL dies are essentially body dies now and I use a universal decapper to pop the primers out.
I also experimented quite a bit with floating the supplied expander ball and stem and found it still created more runout than using a carbide expander mandrel.

I don't trim until the brass is 1X. Then I trim to the shortest length. Assuming it's in specs to begin with. Which I've never bought any brass new that wasn't.

Based on my own experience, a good chamfer helps with concentricity while the bullet is being seated. Especially if using flat based bullets.

I usually do it this way also.

on Lapua brass I just load and go if the necks appear to be round. No prep required.

On Winchester I resize, trim and clean up the flash holes. HAd a recent bag of .280 Winchester that was so far out of spec it would not chamber...taught me a lesson. LOL

This for 30plus years.

In the OP's question he states he is using Lapua brass. He shouldn't have to do anything but maybe round up the neck if necessary. All other prep work is done.

Do you use Lapua brass?

Always prudent to measure for case neck thickness. You might be surprised. Nothing is perfect, not even Lapua brass.

Lapua 260 brass I've used is usually good to go, just load and shoot. I have a 6x47L that obviously I have to resize, but don't do any other prep to. Most all my other cartridges I use Winchester. I straighten out any neck dings, chamfer, and clean flash holes, load and shoot. About the only time I use any other brass is 223 and 30-06 where I have multiple rifles, or for a specific cartridge where I don't want to use Winchester brass. I do everything to the Remington brass for my 280.

Kaiser Norton

Cheers BlackDog1, I'll order up the bits then.

about what I do except I deburr the outside as well.

Me too.

Me three.