Neck Turning Equipment

Was thinking about turning necks on my 223 so I can use by bushing dies without the internal sizing plug. The brass I have (LC) seams to vary 0.001" on the neck thickness. My Lapua seams to be good to go. AP really run smooth without the depriming stem and sizing ball. Was wondering what is the best options for this, powered vs manual.

Also what are you using to measure run out? I see several measuring devices made by the big names.

 

Neck turning is a tedious process. To my view, the only reason to do it is if you have a tight chamber neck.

There was a fella used to come around here, but I haven't seen him in a long while, who opined that using a bushing die is advantageous even in brass with differing neck thicknesses.

A word of caution, if you have more than .005" expansion on your as fired brass, you may wish to size the necks twice, incrementally, rather than try to run them thru the same bushing to bring .005 over down to zero over.

As far as tools go, I much like 21st Century offerings. They are reasonably priced and of extreme quality.

 

I only have a couple of 0.001's expansion on my brass. A lot of times it will pass in the LE Wilson case gauge after firing, with the necks expanded 0.002". What I have started doing is using the bushing die and expander combo. I have the bushing sized to do a bare minimum so the expander finishes it off on the way out. You know when you have a thin one when the expander passes in with no resistance.

I've looked at K&M as well as 21st Century. Noticed a lot of them are done by hand. Was kind of wondering how clean and even the cuts would be.

I've been looking at lathes and endmils for my shop. Will use the lathe when I start the tedious process of neck turning.

Thanks for the input.

 

...roger that: for accurate sizing it's generally not good to reduce more than .001" - .002" at a time with the bushings, at least when finishing up.

 

The new Hornady works well I use it fast and accurate. Good for what I do turning 6.5 Creed and making brass for it. I do same thing use bushing die without plug for bump sizing. Thinking bout trying it on 243 also.
Hope this helps. Benchrest guys say it helps on standard chamber if rifle will shoot seems to help some doesnt hurt .
Roc1

 

Just turn it so that you are cleaning up about half of the circumference. This will get you nice round necks. Don't turn too much, ask me how I know. I ruined a hundred cases the first batch.

 

Thanks for the tip..