Has my annealing failed and has it banjaxed my accuracy test?

.002 neck tension is what I set at. Some go .003. Measure one or 2 or more with bullet seated. get a good reading and set neck tension .002 or .003 smaller.
The expander ball coming back out could be the cause of some of the issue.
Are you lubing the inside of the neck?. I was told by a wise man- The one thing that throws a neck off is the expander ball being pulled back out of the neck. Pulls up on shoulder and case neck. Also when you are done- Do you run a neck brush down the neck before seating bullet?.
 
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TBH, I've yet to reach the stage of being able to adjust those sorts of parameters.

I've only just learnt how to set my shoulders back with the FL die. Now that the FL die is set up, I just run the cases through. I lube the outside, not the inside of the mouth.

Is neck tension something that can be set with the collet die rather than the FL die?
 
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The one thing that throws a neck off is the expander ball being pulled back out of the neck
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Wise? And I have asked how would a wise guy measure the difference in the length of the case from the shoulder to the case head before pulling the sizer ball through the neck and after pulling the sizer ball through the neck.

The wise guys are not difficult to find, in the real world they have shrugged shoulders and receding hair lines.

F. Guffey
 
Guffy- I am but a rookie at most of this ok. I shoot with some of the best shooters I have seen. Ex military sniper, The sniper for the local swat team here, The winner of the Grand Master tourney in Montana. The matches I am in are best of the 5 state area. I take their advice with a grain of salt until I try some of the stuff they say. When my groups shrink from doing them- I simply continue doing it. By doing this I have gone from a MOA shooter to a sub MOA shooter out to 1000 yards now.I have a lot to learn, but I listen,, absorb, and ask questions of those that I see winning matches over and over. As for measuring it- I am sure you have a gauge you made for that, don't you?. Now agree or not the one I can tell you has made a Very big difference ( down this same line). After I run my cases through the die- I pull the expander ball/decapper out and run them through again. This HAS made a noticeable difference in my deviation. My neck tension is perfect from case to case. My deviation from shot to shot is most times 8 FPS or less, the most is 10 FPS.
My effort to seat a bullet is very consistent from one to the next.

James- Your full length die should work just fine. I am not positive what would cause your difference in dimensions. My match dies I have sent back to Forester with 5 or more cases and for 10.00 they hone them to your chamber.. Cases must be fired about 4 or more times in your chamber and not resized when you send them in. I have never used a collet die so your one up on me there.
 
Guffy- I am but a rookie at most of this ok.
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I am sure I have read all of that before, the question had to do with measuring the effect of pulling the sizer ball through the neck. I personally know reloaders/shooters that take themselves too seriously. Some times I respond with "FANTASTIC".

F. Guffey
 
Those that take themselves to seriously- Most time Guffy are the best shots. I am not the best shot by far, but I do take what I do very seriously. I have learned that if you want to play with the big boys, You need to learn what works for the big boys and duplicate that. Maybe I push to hard, Maybe I don't. I just know what I want in shooting and until I get there- I will keep pushing harder and harder. I offer advice that has worked for me as you do and all others in here. If my advice is used- Great-- if not- Oh well. I lose no sleep over it.
In fact right now in another post- I am looking for advice on head spacing issue that I think I am having. I read the reply,s I try, I learn and hopefully advance from it.
 
4runnerman,

Have you tried simply leaving the expander out for the initial pass? If your die is one that needs the expander to serve as a chuck for the decapping pin, you can probably order an expander for the next smaller caliber so it won't actually pull on the neck, but still holds the pin and still irons out small mouth dents. I'm just thinking to have you avoid over-working the neck by sizing it twice.
 
Thanks Nick- Not sure if this works, but what I did was to extend the decapper down as far as it will go. When I go to decap, I barley have to even touch the neck before the pin pops the primer out.

Nick-If you have time-Find my post about case head Seperation. I would value your input on it very much
 
I've re-necksized my remaining 74 Norma cases. I did it with the Lee neck collet die and the results are a bit odd.

The die was at the same setting for all of them and I squeezed till there was no longer any movement (Lee Hand-press). I now have neck OD of 8.40mm (x1), 8.42mm (x10), 8.43mm (x18), 8.44mm (x17), 8.45mm (x12), 8.46mm (x7), 8.47mm (x7), 8.48mm (x1) and 8.50mm (x1).

I tried the collet die another time on both cases at the extremes of the range and no change with either. Some cases seem to have a slightly oval mouth as the reading might change by 0.01mm if I measured again at 90 degrees.

What does any of that tell you?
 
What does any of that tell you?
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Tell me? Nothing, I have dies, lots of dies, Most of my dies are full length sizing dies. My full length sizing dies are very versatile, when I run out of ways to use my full length sizing die I get out the case forming dies and start over.

I have specialty dies, I have small base dies, neck sizing dies, forming/trim dies reamer dies etc. Before I ordered the specialty dies I tried to get all the use out of my full length sizing dies. To go with my threaded full length sizing dies I have feeler gages. I call the feeler gages 'companion tools to the press.

Before I started annealing I studied the art of annealing, after that I made tools for annealing based on simple rules.

F. Guffey
 
Tell me? Nothing
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How does that help me?

Which dies you have does not help me determine the state of my cases, nor what I might need to do with my dies, unless you're offering to give me all you dies.

Are you offering to give me all you dies?

If not, then your dies are not part of this equation.

if you're implying that I don't know much about annealing, then I'd agree but that observation too does little to help in this situation...
 
What does any of that tell you?
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That tells you why blueprints always give a tolerance range, since manufacturing is never that precise

I'd worry less about minor variations on individual cases, and concentrate more on how well they perform in the real world

No matter how "perfect" you make the cases, other variables beyond your control will cancel the benefits, which are too minor to measure
 
I haven't heard a word on how neck turning will effect case tension on the bullet when annealed. We know that neck turning makes the neck thickness equal on all sides. If we annealed without turning necks then we should have inconsistent tension on the necks. Is that correct?
 
I'd worry less about minor variations on individual cases, and concentrate more on how well they perform in the real world
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OK, but here I have a whole bunch of cases, recently annealed and neck sized, all at the same, so no changes to the collet die yet I have 0.04mm spread in mouth OD.

That would not concern me normally except that when I loaded the bullets the first time round, there was clear difference in the ease with which the bullets entered the mouths and the suggests they'd have similar difference in ease when leaving them.

Given that this test is supposed those if a) a suppressor changes POI and MOA performance of my best loads and if b) charging with the Lyman Gen 6 of a beam scale makes any appreciable difference in MOA performance, I don't want to start out with known inconsistencies.

Now that I know about the issue, I'm curious as to the cause.
 
" I lube the outside, not the inside of the mouth."

Is this right? You are not lubing the inside when the expander ball goes thru?? You have to lube the inside for this process.

And of course, you have to measure the amount of lube you place inside each neck. I have a die for that. :D
 
Honestly, I've never needed and I've never been told that this is necessary. Lee's own instructions say that no lube is needed for the collet and I've only ever lubed the exterior when FL sizing. Again, never had any problems, stuck cases, so had no reason to think it needed lubing there.

There is no expander ball that I've seen in my Lee collet dies, just a cylindrical mandrel. On the FL that mandrel has a spear-head profile but that is it. As I said, that has never got stuck.
 
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Banjaxed?

I keep forgetting you are a Brit.

banjax
verb
To defeat utterly; clobber •Popularized in Great Britain by the Irish broadcaster Terry Wogan in the 1970s : She upped and banjaxed the old man

[1939+; origin unknown]
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Aarond

.
 
James,

All the other stuff aside what you are describing is the result of what I got when I did not anneal cases for 8 or 10 cycles.

Some were hard to insert, some still ok.

When I annealed I went a bit overboard (torch) and got too much but they are consistent and they don't shoot too badly.

Not match grade but good enough for 1" MOA and sometimes sub 1 inch MOA groups.

One method was to control the torch flame through the vent holes being taped off but you need the type of torch that has that and not all do.

I do have access to a pyrometer so it comes home some day and I will see how hot my tip flame is. If I can get a good spot and then time it that should be pretty good. Will see
 
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