To Turn, or Not to Turn

[NewAZShooter]

I understand that silhouette shooting is not bench rest shooting, and eeking out every last bit of accuracy is rather pointless if you (like me) still can't break the trigger when the crosshairs fall dead center on the animal very often.

But I'm wondering how many of you HP shooters out there are turning your case necks as a part of your reloading process for your HP ammo? I read online that neck turning reduces fliers and can reduce groups by half. Fact or fiction?

I am still relatively new to reloading, and have never turned the case necks to uniform thickness. For a hundred bucks Sinclair sells a kit for this purpose. Midway sells a Hornady tool that got poor reviews. If you do turn, what tools do you recommend, and do you have any tips for new reloaders in using them?

Thanks!

[sobrbiker883]

I've never done it for my 308's.

IMHO neck turning is only for very bad brass, or if one has a custom chambered gun with a tight neck.

Maybe someday I'll shoot well enough for it to make a difference.....

Once I retire or become independently wealthy I will love to play with different loads and variables, but for right now I am actually concentrating on getting one load for my 308's that will shoot sub moa in all three and running that for sillywet and sniper style comps. I've landed on a 168gr IMR4895 that looks like it'll shoot the equal of Fed GM Match in my different guns.

I'll let my wife and Harley do the neck turning for now

[Jim Beckley]

I used to turn the necks on my brass years ago. I would check the run out on the brass and then index it with a file. I would measure all of the loads of powder. I think it was a waste of time. If I had to do it all again, I would spend the time on dry firing or more range time. Buy some quality brass (Lapua) and just shoot.

[chickenchoker]

This is the question you have to ask yourself. HOW BIG IS YOUR ACCUMULATED ERROR ? In other words, if your wabble is 2moa and your ammo is 1moa will you still be on target? Now if your wabble is 4moa and your ammo is 3moa, is the miss because of ammo or hold? The only person who can answer that question is the person who has to budget there time between obligations and the other question as to how far do you want to go in this sport or any other? I learned this from national and world champions! The same ones who trimmed their brass after every firing and practiced with 10x and could shoot minute of hole in the horn instead of minute of ram ( that was with a handgun)

[Silo65]

NewAZShooter

I've done both in the same rifle and it didn't seem to reduce fliers to any appreciable extent. It did make neck sizing more consistent. I turned mainly due to large variance in wall thickness (0.0125-.015) in 260 Rem brass. I bought 500 and turned to 0.013, about 200 didn't make the full cleanup and would have required going down to below 0.0125. I've tried necked up Lapua 243 but you invariably get a doughnut, though very small, at the neck shoulder junction which then may require turning to eliminate. Necking down Lapua 308 requires neck turning in my chamber (0.298 neck ) since the wall thickness produces rounds with 0.297 necks and that's a little too close for me.

I use a K&M turner with a carbide mandrel, pilot jack, and dial indicator turned using a Skill cordless driver. You'll also need the K&M expand iron to expand the brass to match the mandrel. However, I don't recommend neck turning for silhouette unless you really need it either for good reason or just for a piece of mind. It takes a while to turn (and learn) and makes a good winter project.

I'm one of those guys that does weigh each charge and still checks the runout for important competitions. I figure that I need any help I can get since my hold isn't that great. When I pull the trigger within the animal I want to know that if I miss, it was my fault. Part of the piece of mind thing. Perhaps I should spend more time at the range, as recommended, to reduce my hold moa.

Silo65

[carl425]

I've always heard it the same as Sobr, neck turning is only for guns that were deliberately built with tight chambers. This practice was popular with the BR guys to the point where any rifle in a BR caliber that is not chambered with a tight neck is referred to as "no turn".

It also seems that the availability of high quality brass from Norma and Lapua has made the "no turn" neck at least as popular as the tight neck chambers.

[ajj]

PM sent.
I'm sparing the board a repetition of my fascination with the formula to compute "accumulated error." The curious should feel free to PM me.
The short answer to your question is to forget neck turning. Lee Collett dies are the way to go for silhouette, IMHO.

[Jim Beckley]

Since I'm kind of simple, I kinda like the KISS method. If the gun is shooting where the dot is (what ever the distance), then if the dot is on the target when the gun goes off, it hits it, if it isn't on the target then you don't hit it.

[NewAZShooter]

Thanks to all for the varied and informative responses to my post. I measured neck thickness on 20 cases of my new batch of 500 30.06 Remington brass just to see how it measured up. I found that some cases varied in thickness from one side of the neck to the other. One side would measure .012 the other .013.

Thinnest were .012, thickest were .0135. But all 20 I measured were within those measurements. Not nearly as much variance in thickness as Silo's 260 brass mentioned. Sounds like there is no need for me to go there. I can save that hundred bucks on the neck turner and buy more reloading components so I can practice more.

This Remington brass seems to be not too bad in terms of case neck thickness, but after I FL sized, trimmed, uniformed, deburred, chamfered, fire-formed, neck sized and cleaned those 500 pieces, I weight sorted the lot and found case weight to vary from 189 grains to 198 grains. I wonder if that could be part of the reason why my groups are still 3 inches or so at 100 yards? Well, I sorted to within one grain, so maybe that will help. Next time I'll be trying Lapua brass, or that Nosler Custom stuff.

Jim's advice is well-taken, especially considering how darned well he's been shooting lately! Thanks again fellas.

Happy holidays and good shooting.

[Jim Beckley]

Another thing that you might play around with is bullet seating depth to give you a little tighter groups. I don't know anything about the Interarms actions, but alot of those are nothing more than a 98 action. That 3 inch at 100 might be all that will ever shoot. If your at the range when Bill Cole is there, ask him to put it on a bag for you, he has had some bench rest experience. I bought some Nosler brass for my deer rifle, I might have gotten a bad batch, but it was sure expensive junk, looked nice though.

[Evelio Mc Donald]

I have been shooting in all kinds of rifle competition for over 40 years. Once I got a wild hair idea to build a 308 tight neck for any-any competition at 600 and 1000 yds. and of course due to the tight neck, I had to turn the necks on the cases ( A pain in the a__) the gun shot great, but not any better than any other of my custom guns. If you use the same brand of good quality brass, and if you can the same lot no. you will do fine. One important thing is to only neck size after fire forming, I also run a Uniformer reamer thru the flash hole, from outside the case, and also de-burr it from the inside of the case. This will give you a very uniform ignition, which is very important. You will be surprised how inconsistent the size of the flash hole is. The flash hole is actually punched during the case manufacturing process, so there are a lot of burrs left in the inside.
I really don't want to hurt your feelings, but with a 30.06 in a Mark 10 action, you have a great hunting gun, but not a competitive silhouette rifle.
Evelio.

[BlauBear]

I bought some Nosler brass for my deer rifle, I might have gotten a bad batch, but it was sure expensive junk, looked nice though.

Not something I wanted to hear just after buying a bunch in Remington .260!

I also run a Uniformer reamer thru the flash hole, from outside the case, and also de-burr it from the inside of the case. This will give you a very uniform ignition, which is very important.

See Kitty! I wasn't reaming the wrong end, I just accidentally knew something you didn't!

[Gringo Grizzly]

Evelio -
As you're aware we both came out of the same school and were influenced by the same people in the Jurassic period of this sport.

I too went nuts on neck turning way back there.
I spent hours working on brass prep - weighing it, neck turning, you name it.

Based on my experience - also 40 years or so, the only time I'd consider neck turning now is if my case necks were really too thick for the chamber of the rifle.
The "older than dirt" test for this is to merely see if you can push a bullet into a fired (unsized) case.
If it won't fit it's probably a good idea to take action related to the neck of the cases or the chamber.

Don't get me wrong, I do work hard to get accuracy and I DO think it helps to have a rifle with .5 MOA capability.
I think you get this through a good gunsmithing using good barrels - and then working up the load that works for you.

I agree with the shooter that mentioned buying quality brass helps.
This has proven especially true for the .260 era.
Like several others, I've just elected to buy Lapua .243 brass and neck it up.
This stuff is good enough that I don't think you have to do anything else until (and if) the case length gets too long.

Thx!

Greg Buss (aka Gringo Grizzly).

[jneihouse]

Evelio Mc Donald wrote:
I also run a Uniformer reamer thru the flash hole, from outside the case, and also de-burr it from the inside of the case. This will give you a very uniform ignition, which is very important.

See Kitty! I wasn't reaming the wrong end, I just accidentally knew something you didn't!

That's okay, so long as the primer doesn't fall all the way through into the body of the case when you prime the brass.........

Kitty

[Jerry G]

I have turned my cases in the past and I did notice that the thickness were not even around the case neck. Turning is a lot of work and I don't think it get's you enough accuracy to offset the time you spend. It is a lot of time for very little improvement.