Neck Turning Procedure

[wyobohunter]

First and foremost, I do not want to debate about the benefits of this; I'm only looking for input from those of you who turn your necks. Thanks.

I bought a Forster Hand Outside Neck Turner with pilots for my two bolt action rifles (30-06 and 338 RUM). I read the directions and they weren't very clear on how much is too much. So far I've only practiced on old junk cases... Should the whole thing end up "shiny"? better yet, how many thousandths do you remove on average? Thanks.

 

[Loader9]

First, I don't turn necks just to turn necks. If I'm sizing say 3006 brass to 6.5x 06 where the brass neck thickness grows, I might neck turn the brass but that's only if it goes into the gun and binds slightly or an empty resized case comes out with a smaller neck meaning the neck is too thick. Otherwise, I take off as little as possible and usually that means that not all of the neck will be shiny. Turn just enough to get it fairly close to being straight. Neck turning for most rifles creates far too much room at the neck and the round is not supported correctly in the chamber. Accuracy usually suffers.

 

[LHB1]

When I neck turned some rifle brass (.222, .25/06, 7 Rem Mag) I did turn the necks until full shiny BUT tried to leave the necks as thick as possible while turning ALL necks to the same thickness for a given caliber. Note that if you turn the case necks, standard sizing dies and seating dies may no longer function well with the decreased neck thickness. I measured the neck thickness of cases for each caliber and ordered custom sizing die inserts and seating die inserts to handle this thickness. Loaded the cases in bench rest style hand loading dies using the custom inserts. Worked well for me. I used the Marquart case neck turning tool. Don't know if it is still available.

 

[Unclenick]

The benchrest shooters, who routinely do outside neck turning, have custom chambers with narrower-than-SAAMI spec neck diameters, then count on taking all their brass down a couple thousandths so they fit those chambers.

I have found, using the NECO case gauge, that any unevenness in neck thickness is typically half the unevenness in the case web down near the pressure ring area. That "banana" shape inside the case can cause uneven bolt thrust and add a lateral vibration moment, thereby, since the pressure ring starts stretching on one side before the other. So, I carefully sort with the gauge before turning necks, since turning necks doesn't solve that problem.

Once I've sorted cases, I usually get 20% of Winchester brass to be under 0.001" TIR. I set that aside for match long-range loads. I turn 0.001" off, typically taking it down from about 0.014" neck thickness to 0.013". That is to keep neck tension on the bullets even. I then neck size them only using the Lee Collet Die, which leaves a little of the neck wide at the shoulder to center the case in the chamber. I wouldn't bother to turn cases that will be fed from a magazine as the ride up the feed ramp will tip the bullets enough to offset the gain from the neck turning in most instances.