Teach me about inside and outside neck turning please

[swampcrawler]

Hi guys. I’ve been reloading for quite a while, but till now it’s all been straight wall pistol stuff.

My wife recently bought me a Bergara BMP in 6.5 Creedmoor and I need to start loading some good fodder for it to see what she will do.

It seems that consistent necks are important to accuracy, so rather than just cramming bullets into my once fired brass id like to learn to do it right.

Inside vs outside turning? Both? What’s the recommended equipment? Anything else I need to consider aside from good quality dies and components?

 

[243winxb]

Neck turning- https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/should-i-get-a-outside-neck-turning-tool.825195/

http://www.sinclairintl.com/reloadi...tools/nt-1000-neck-turning-kit-prod38664.aspx
These 2 links should help.

Our NT-1000 neck Turning Kits include the NT-1000 Neck Turner, our Generation II Expander Die (05-3000), a Neck Turning mandrel and an Expander Mandrel. Both included mandrels are turned from high grade stainless steel on precision turning centers. The Expander mandrel is sized .001 under bullet diameter and the Turning mandrels are .002 below bullet diameter. This allows for the perfect fit to avoid galling the inside of your cases during the turning process.

For additional technical information regarding neck turning, please feel free to call our 800 number and speak to any of our reloading technicians.

I would Fl size, no expander? Then use the Sinclair expander? Then use turning mandrel to turn?? The donut should be pushed to the outside when expanded? Some one correct me, if wrong.

I turn with a Lyman attachment that fits the Universal trimmer. Different. So not much help.

 

[Blue68f100]

The expander I have takes it to 0.2635"-0.264" from K&M. Just enough for their turning pilot to be very snug, but rotates. I do all my turning on lathe, as the drive source. Use a holder special holder. If your going to turn inside, it's best to do before sizing, since the out sides has expanded to the chamber. Take note if you by some good brass you want need to do it, if so it's only a cleanup cut 0.0005". Depending on how much you remove you have to have the right size bushing to fit what you turned down too. Most of the brass that I have run into is running on the thin side according to the SAAMI spec. I've started taking the heavier wall 308W brass and sizing it down to get 0.015" thick necks vs 0.013". I had some old 308W brass that was averaging 0.016-0.017" wall thickness. Makes a lot of difference in sizing.

It's cheaper to just buy good brass from Lapua, ready to go. Then if you decide to uniform them your only removing about 0.0005". I've seen some commercial brass that has taken 0.002" to clean up, leaving it pretty clean. I normally don't take the time to turn brass that bad due to thin walls.

 

[Walkalong]

Wilson reamer with a case holder on their trimmer for the inside.

Some good hand options for turning necks. Use expanders and mandrels made for them. Start looking at Sinclair International and K&M.

@Offfhand had some good recommendations recently, but i can't find the thread.

 

[swampcrawler]

Thanks guys. I plan to buy some Lapua brass to start with but I had hoped to be able to make the 300 or so Hornady and federal cases I have from factory ammo into something useful as well.

Precision rifle reloading is a whole different world from slapping together pistol rounds on a progressive. So much to learn.