Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Neck turning question....before or after sizing.

I have a Forster hand held outside neck turner. My question is, do I turn the necks before I resize a fired case or after. When turning necks from a sized case, I notice that it is very difficult to get the brass over the caliber specific pilot. Thanks for helping me understand the “right” process, and thanks for any feedback.

Were there instructions with it?

Never used a hand held, but On their lathe type you turn after sizing and pushing the expander in. On occasion I have lubed the mandrel a wee bit.

My Sinclair hand held turner is used on sized brass after the case has been necked up using an expander mandrel. Sinclair link here
The "expander mandrel" is held in an "expander die", you'll need both pieces if you do it this way.
It leaves the case neck ID .001" larger than the turning mandrel. enough clearance to turn but not so much the case will chatter.

If I was wanting to turn standard rifle brass I'd sacrifice one piece of fired brass to see if it turns smoothly.

I'm turning for a tight neck target rifle so I do the whole song and dance for that brass.

I have a Forster neck turner. I use it after resizing. I use a Lee case holder for their trim kit and turn it with a small ratchet driver that fits the hex end of the shell holder.

Put some imperial wax on the mandrill and it should work fine. I also polish the mandrill with Flitz and 0000 steel wool to slick it up. You can get different sized or custom mandrills too if still difficult. Annealing the case can help too if the case has had a couple of firings already.

I've never waxed a mandrill.

Yah think it might take exception to it?

This one had its backside waxed. I'm not sure about the Flitz/steel wool treatment. Does it look happy?

LMAO