Neck turning brass!!! is it needed..

[bwilliams]

Neck turning brass
Thought i would throw this out there..
Is neck turning needed?? Some say yes, some say no.

What do you think?

Happy holidays everyone
Brett

[lone ringer]

I would say after more than 30 years of shooting HP silhouette that for our sport is not really needed to turn the necks on the brass but that depends on the caliber and brass that you are using. If you are shooting a 260 and want to use 308 brass you may need to neck turn the brass if the metal on the neck area is too thick.

[Jerry G]

If you have a very tight chamber, you may need to turn your brass depending on the amount of 'brass flow' you have with your cases. The only way to realy tell is to measure the outside diameter of the neck with a bullet inserted in the neck of the case. In most cases, with a normal chamber, I would think your brass will crack and you will throw it away before you have to trim.

[bwilliams]

What about neck tension on bullets and consitancy of handloads when using neck bushings, does this not help??
Does neck turning relate to consistant accuracy and help eliminate those fliers??
Brett

[Jim Beckley]

Get some Lapua brass and don't worry about turning any brass, but if anyone wants a Sinclair neck turner I've got one that just collects dust, PM me with an offer and it will be gone.

[bwilliams]

You are right, Lapua brass is very good. I have been using 243 (6MM) necked up to (6.5) and turning them true, within 1 thou runout, just taking off the high spots and still leaving 14 thou wall thickness in neck. Also have a tighter neck chamber @ .294 on my 260. Just wondering if other people also have found increased accuracy and consistancy with neck turning..
brett

[Bob Mc Alice]

Brett, I stopped neck turning when I departed benchrest shooting. I hated getting beat by thousandths all the time.. No need for neck turning with with standard neck chambers, unless your brass exceeds .003 wall thickness variation. Full length bullet run out or concentricity will only be as good as the neck wall concentricity. I strive to keep total indicator run out on bullets to less than .002 As you probably know I shoot 7-08 almost exclusively in silhouette, with a dash of .308 for good measure. My choice of brass is Winchester. With out a doubt the best domestic produced brass in the US. Neck wall thickness uniformity is always less than .0015 which is perfectly acceptable to use as is for offhand shooting. And whatever their brass formula and processing secret is it leads to long case life. I have 200 cases that have been loaded and fired..get this...21 times and show no signs of failure yet. I head spaced all of my Douglas match grade barrels to be .003 shorter than the standard 1.630 inch length of a head space go gage. The bolts will not close on the gage. They do close with a very light crush feel on new Winchester brass. The theory being no case stretch at all when fired in this tight of a chamber. Drifting off topic I know, but some facts about this batch of brass.

>>Load is mild, 37.0 grs. Varget and 130 gr. MK @ 2550 fps & CCI 200 primer.
>>neck sized only with standard Redding non bushing die, all loadings.
>> .002 shoulder bump every time.
>>trimmed three times for a total of .015 brass removed.
>>no annealing done at all.
>>neck tension (pull) remains tight and consistant.
>>primer pockets are nearly as tight as new.
>> as of yet, no bright immanent failure ring at head.
>> neck wall thickness is still .0135 to .0145, just about same as when new.

I cut two cases at random to check for thinning of the wall at the head. Still no visible thinning as you would expect to see on a case ready to break at the head.

My ram load using 40.0 grs.Varget and the 168 MK with the same loading technique show head failure signs at 14-15 loadings every time. More pressure.

I am not trying to break a record on the number of times a case can be reloaded. At load # 12 these cases were designated for practice only. I wouldn't want one to break during a match, but they are still going strong. I have never taken brass this far but plan on firing #22 then throwing them away....maybe. Mild loads in tight chambers equals long case life.

[bwilliams]

Thanks for the feed back on neck turning. I started neck turning to control bullet run out and the odd fliers. Like yourself i shoot reduced loads and have have no issues with case streching, but have a new batch of brass and i am getting ready to fire form them. Not sure if i wanted to go thru the work of turning them or not..
Brett

[boats]

When I switched to 7mm08 from .308 bought a set of Form and Trim dies and a neck turner. Never used the neck turning tool. Rifle shoots fine with the necked down .308 brass. Would have been a major job to hand neck turn 6 100 round MTM boxes of brass too.

My opinion is if it needs turning to fit the chamber you have no choice. good fit nothing to be gained for offhand shooting

Boats