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.

The main reason I turned it was the subsequent necking down to 7mm size. I didn't shoot it in the 7mm08 beforehand, no comparisons done.

I know a lot of people size down 308 brass to 7mm08 without turning, but the two factory 7mm08 chambers I've worked with left no margin for error if I used anything but thin WW 308 to start with. Cases formed from Lapua 308 won't chamber.

The loaded rounds with turned brass came out with .311" necks. Fired brass from the present rifle comes out .314" across the neck.

A friend of mine picked up the rifle used. The stock has some wear and tear, but the crown looks good and the bore cleaned up quite nicely as best I can tell w/o a bore scope.

When I first started working with it I was getting 1 1/2 to 2 inch three shot groups at 100 yards. (This was with FC brass from 7mm08 factory loads.) I blamed it on the trigger which was heavy. (No way it was my handloads, right? ) So I took the rifle apart to get at the trigger adjustments and fortunately the rifle was old enough so the adjustment screws actually adjusted things enough to be much easier to shoot while remaining safe.

When I reassembled the rifle I noticed the magazine box was in a bind. So I spent a goodly amount of time stroking its bottom edge against a file and trial fitting until it just wiggles in the assembled rifle.

Voila! Smaller groups. The FC brass loads give triangles of 1 moa or a hair less, and the new loads in the turned and sized down RP brass give 3/4 to 1 moa.

I stayed with three shot groups because the soda straw barrel goes from cool to quite hot in four shots. It ain't like load testing in my 40X!

What Mule Deer said for the most part. Have found each rifle to be an individual in this regard. Some are more tolerant of cockeyed ammo than others. An index mark on a case gives handy reference for loading and chambering in the same orientation for single shots. Never tried it with repeaters

If you shoot a .20 Vartarg you will become familiar with turning case necks. I use the RCBS tool that has a cutter with beveled edges allowing me to get into the junction of the case neck and shoulder a bit. My Vartarg has a tight chamber and I have to take about 0.022 thousandths off the parent Firball case to chamber them. I found it best to do this in 3 passes, and neck-sizing the virgin cases before the final pass in the Vartarg die. This leaves me a consistent neck rim thickness of ~.043". I was worried about necks splitting but have fired cases prepped in this manner 4 times and have yet to see a split neck.

mathman,

I've often tried to isolate the factors that can make a rifle shoot more accurately, but to do so requires range tests under reasonable conditions after each change. If we make several changes and accuracy improves noticeably, which was most important?

One thing I will note is that even very lightweight barrels can keep plunking them in there if properly stress-relieved and bedded. Many people, for instance, are astonished when they find the light Douglas barrels on New Ultra Light Arms rifles keep zipping bullets into the same group even when screaming hot. But factory button-rifled barrels aren't usually nearly as, uh, heat-resistant.

The other factor, of course, is heat waves rising off the barrel affecting our aim.

DigitallDan,

Over the years I've become convinced that many rifles will shoot bullets with long bearing surfaces accurately even if the bullets show considerable run-out, due to the bullets being forced straighter when they enter the bore. This seems to apply most to relatively "hard" bullets, especially monolithics.

I agree with that, yet my observation comes from same caliber/same bullets in different rifles. It seems more critical in smaller calibers but that is far from absolute.

Yeah, no doubt the throat and bore dimensions of individual rifles have a lot to do with how sensitive they are to "crooked" bullets.

In general my experience is that short, light bullets (which tend to be most common in smaller calibers) are more sensitive to crooked seating, but have seen exceptions.

Another factor often overlooked in striving for straight ammo is how well the seating stem fits a partcular bullet. Target shooters are normally far more aware of this than hunters.

My first .270 Winchester was extremely accurate with 150-grain Hornady Spire Points and the old mil-surp H4831, shooting around an inch for 3-shot groups at 300 yards!
Back then I didn't know anything about bullet concentricity because I'd never found anything about it in any of the many magazines and books I'd read, but when I finally did buy a concentricity gauge almost 20 years later, I found my .270 dies seated that bullet far straighter than any other, even in brass with relatively uneven necks.

I agree. Aside from other changes test to test, the neck turned RP brass and the stock FC brass contained quite different loads.

What is the procedue you use to measure for uniform neck thickness? I think that is one of the problems im having reloading for my .220 swift with new winchester brass.

I use a ball mic to check neck thickness. I do extensive work on my comp. brass, but nothing on my hunting brass. A waste of my time and I see no advantage to it. I do use RWS, Norma, and Lapua brass on my hunting rifles and they are good to go as is. I have never missed an animal because of my loads or rifle. My misses have been on me.
Now I know a lot of you enjoy spending time at the range and working up the ultimate load. I am really happy that you like doing it, but it ain't me.

Im finding that when I seat a bullet (new win factory brass sized by a hornady new dimension f.s. die and a hornady 52 bthp match) I was getting a really tight feeling seating push that was even scraping the bullet. 3"+ groups at 200. Factory was shooting about 1.5" at 200. I then would do another pump with the sizing ball after a full stroke with the f.s. die (on new brass) then really debur and chamfer the case mouth and scrub it with the rcbs .224 nylon brush. This helped a lot and got groups down around 2ish" with the same load. Wondering if neck turning would just be the easy answer here.

I've been using the K&M Neck turner exclusively for 10 years at least. I stopped looking for anything different. Maybe someone, such as those you mentioned, has a better mouse trap. However, the K&M tool will consistently adjust 0.0002" per mark on the knob/thimble that advances the cutter. One full revolution of the knob/thimble is 0.002". It's easy to use and I'm just accustomed to using it. I like K&M reloading tools in general.

While I don’t shoot in competition, I am teaching my grandkids to shoot and reload. I want them to know how to get the best ammo for competition and hunting. I use RWS and Lapua brass for competition level loads. But for hunting, we use mostly Winchester, Federal and Remington brass in that order of preference. We neck size with Lee dies and use a body die when needed. We clean the flash hole on all brass one time. Before each reload we check the overall length, trim as needed, chamfer, de- burr and clean the primer pocket. That is all we do for hunting brass. Are we doing too much for hunting brass?

Truk,

I load to the quality of the rifle.

For a standard hunting rifle, with new brass I trim and camfer, and then I don't worry about it again until it gives me a reason to. I may turn the necks if I need to mitigate run out.

I like to neck size, but do FL size if the rounds may be used in more then one rifle.

For my custom rifles made by top accuracy smiths, I debur flash holes, weight sort, and turn the necks, neck size, and use top of the line dies.

For high volume stuff, I just size and go.

_____________________________________________________________

John:

Over the years I have read, heard and seen that the 6mm PPC is purported to be the most accurate cartridge ever, supposedly twice as accurate as any other according to reports. Why ????

I have also observed that my 6.5 mm x 57 Swedish Mauser seems to have a LONG bullet comparatively and that it delivers better consistency and smaller groups than many of my other rifles.

For the most part I have to agree with you that, in reality, longer bullets seem to deliver more accuracy with less deviation than shorter. It just make sense.

Bill

Thanks for the help antelope sniper.

One question I would like an answer to. I purchased a tight neck barrel that came with 100 prepped cases that had been fired in that barrel. When I started to load those cases, I found that they all had a donut inside the neck. To remove the donut I used a reamer to cut it out. Would it be better to fire the case, moving the donut to the outside and use a neck turner to cut it off?

Richard

Turk, I've never suffered "The dreaded donut". I think some guys inside neck ream them. Since I don't have an inside neck reamer, I'd address it as you described, sizing it with a Forster neck die, then turning off the excess.

I believe Mathman and some other have dealt with this issue as well, as they may have some additional idea's on how to deal with it.

I don't think firing will move the donut to the outside. In fact, if the chamber neck is straight and round so too will be the outside of the fired case neck, leaving the donut inside.

I have a die body that takes interchangeable mandrels. It's used to expand the necks after the brass is full length sized in a regular FL die without an expander ball in place.

The full diameter portion of the mandrel is long enough to go completely through the neck. So when the neck is pushed over the mandrel any irregularities and/or donuts are pushed to the outside. When it's a thin brass tube vs. a titanium nitride coated steel or solid carbide mandrel, the brass loses. So the undesirable parts are skimmed off by the outside turning cutter.

The dreaded donut is one reason I prefer necking brass down rather than necking up--such as using .270 brass to make 6.5-06's instead of necking up .25-06's. This avoids turning the top of the shoulder into part of the neck, the cause of the donut.

That said, often it doesn't make much difference, depending on the brand of brass. Some apparently have thinner brass in the shoulder than others, and if a bullet's base doesn't reach down to the donut, it just doesn't matter.

“Would it be better to fire the case, moving the donut to the outside and use a neck turner to cut it off?”

That was dumb! I was not thinking when I typed that. Firing it would do nothing to the donut.

In this case I assume the donut was created when the brass turning was stopped before it reached the shoulder, leaving part of the neck thicker. When the brass was fired, the thicker part of the neck was pushed inside by the chamber, creating the donut. Is that correct? The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know!

Thanks for your help, everyone.

Richard

Enlighten me:

What is the big deal about a "dreaded donut" inside a neck.

Just exactly what are the problems? What does it do ?

I'll have to say again that my Quick Load throws out some phenomenally sensitive variables amounting to thousands of PSI and Velocity.

But I just don't have a handle on this "donut"

If you have good coffee, donuts are not a problem.

Short version: It messes with proper bullet seating and can cause chambering issues as well.


Side note: I believe you have a QL addiction.

Gotcha. Agree.

Those bullets that are long and protrude down in the case to meet COAL may meet some internal obstruction. However, they will push out the donut and cause some infinitesimal friction grip.

Is it actually measureable and it is it even significant?

It is significant, it is measurable, it can and does mess things up. Inconsistent bullet grip, runout issues, et cetera.

Big Time. And worse.

Here's an example and my first experience with the donut.

I formed 7 Mashburn Super brass from .300 Winchester Magnum brass. I had previously neck turned the new .300 Winchester brass before forming the 7 Mashburn. After running it through the die, it was obvious that the shoulder was pushed back and the neck of the Mashburn was longer, now comprised of part of the shoulder of the original .300 WM brass. I had turned the .300 WM brass down and into the shoulder a bit as I always do to actually avoid forming a donut.





The donut was obvious, but I thought it wouldn't matter since it was going to be on the OD anyway after sizing with the expander ball or expander mandrel before doing any bullet seating. I proceeded with load development and really had a difficult time; I couldn't find an obvious node in the ladder. I tried a couple of loads in the ladder and shot them for long range groups as well as 100 yard groups.

Long range groups were horrible with tons of vertical. All over the place. The 5 shot 100 yard group was pretty good.



Thinking it may be a seating depth issue, I went out and shot a test. It didn't improve anything. 550 yards with well over an MOA of vertical stringing...





Then I got to thinking about the obvious donut at the base of the neck on the brass. Threw some calipers on it and measured it. Checked the reamer diagram for neck dimensions. Chamber neck dimension was .317" and the donut at the base measured .317" to .321". Compound that by seating a bullet in the sized case and pushing it out another .002" and you have a big problem chambering a round. The bullet was being squeezed big time when the case was chambered in that little donut area.



The real telltail was taking a fired case and slipping a bullet into the neck. It should slip in freely all the way. When this was tried, the bullet would stop in the neck when the bearing surface in front of the boat tail came in contact with the donut that was now in the ID after being fired.

I ran the existing sized brass through the expander mandrel, neck turned off the donut all the way into the shoulder a tad, loaded 10 and went to the range with the load I had.

Vertical was cut in half and accuracy was much better.

I'll have to reshoot load development because I'm sure the results were inconclusive due to the ff'd up brass.

This is one of the best ever posts. Fantastic. I love it.

I read it twice, but wait, I'm the inveterate pain in the ass. B

I'll pick it apart maybe needlessly.

When I fire form with pistol powder and a wax plug instead of a bullets, it extends the neck. I'm speaking 6PPC. I have to expand the neck about .006 and then turn kissing the shoulder neck juncture. I have no donut doing it this way and the neck expander does very little and does not push the neck back.

Running the expander mandrel into the fire formed, sized brass, then neck turning to eliminate the donut yielded great results.

Same load as before. The last 3 went into less than one inch at 600. Vertical stringing was eliminated completely.

Must have had a breath of wind at about 1/2 MOA

Nice! That sure came together for you, Rick!

RC
That post is worthy of inclusion in a reloading manual. Good info. Thanks

The best I've ever used:

TN1 by Rick Mulhern, on Flickr





TN2 by Rick Mulhern, on Flickr

If you click on the photo you can see that the shoulder is just 'lightly skimmed'! Cartridge shown is Lapua 30/06 brass and I run the case up into a mandrel measuring .3075" prior to inserting the arbor of the turning tool!

The results?

Five shots from 800 yards. The rifle/ammo will do this quite often for me.

Beanland06 by Rick Mulhern, on Flickr