Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Competitive Shooting Neck turning

I just traded for a 6.5-06 and 120 loaded rounds of ammo. 50% of the ammo will not chamber in my rifle but will in a friends. He shot them and now I want to reload them. When do I turn the outside of the necks??? After shooting or after full lenth sizing or is there another sequence I should use. This is a hunting rifle not a bench rifle, I just want to be able to use this brass.

Are you sure it's the neck that hanging things up? Unless it was built as a competition rifle, there is a good chance necks do not need turning. It could be tight on headspace, and that will keep rounds from chambering.

Don't let the tail wag the dog. Brass is cheap. You'll be way ahead to make you some new cases using virgin brass instead of buying a neck turner. I seriously doubt the rifle has a tight neck (I would almost bet much money on it) and turning necks could very well hurt your accuracy instead of helping it. Get new brass.

The die set that came w/ the rifle has an inside neck reaming die w/ it. It is missing the reamer. Because this die was in the set I thought the previous owner had a thick neck problem. I have had to turn outside necks before when necking down 7 mag brass to 264, so I thought this was the problem. I already have the outside neck turning stuff for 6.5. By getting 25-06 brass and necking up will probably solve 99% of my troubles.

I have a .30 - .338 and this is what I've found:

Necking down .338 Winchester brass created an issue where the bolt handle would stick after firing.

Passing 7mm Remington Magnum over the .308 expander mandrel does not create the same problem, so expanding the .25 - 06 sounds good. I'd try it.

FWIW, I have a rifle that does have a very tight neck. A bullet will slide very slowly when dropped back into a fired UNSIZED case. Neck dimension for this rifle is a real issue. If a bullet just 'plops' down the neck into an UNSIZED case, a tight throat is probably not the issue.

Muffin

mic the brass that will chamber against the ones that wont. should find your answer there. if the 120 rounds came from the same dies with the same brass headstamp i cant imagine what the difference is (unless the cases that wont chamber bulged somehow).... never seen a tight necked 6.5-06 reamer before but i imagine they are out there....

woofer