Since I started reloading in 2000, I've been a full-length resize kind of guy. I'm mostly a hunter that shoots and not the other way around. Then I started reading here and got hooked on the idea of Lee Collet dies. I tried them and all of a sudden I'm shooting much more accurately, so I start buying Lee Collet dies for all my regularly shot chamberings.
I've forgotten one thing: after you start neck sizing, when do you give the brass its next full-length resize?
It really depends upon how hot your loads are. Mild loads may go 3-5 shots. Hot loads might not make it 2. My best advice is after firing, try to chamber the case again. If it's tight, then FL size it. Don't wait until you have loaded 50 rounds and go to the range to find out that they're too long.
Not picking on you specifically, but as I said in the thread to which I linked earlier in this one, they'll always come out of the chamber small enough to go right back in again. The only exception will be if the case (or chamber) is out of round, which is a whole 'nother problem. Absent that particular case, the only way they end up needing the shoulder "bumped back" is if you've done something in the reloading process to drag it forward. Pulling an expander through the neck, for example, or squeezing the case body with a FL die while the shoulder is unsupported.
Personally I don't ever find it necessary to bump shoulders back. With regular anneals to case necks I have cases which have been reloaded literally dozens of times without ever having shoulders bumped back.
I do agree though, that it is a good idea to check the finished rounds for easy chambering before a comp or a hunt.
