Our effort to achieve consistent neck tension, inside neck reaming as well as outside neck turning was required. Out next trick will be... how much does it even matter?
After firing, I bushing size to dust the I/D to a standard neck reamer. This removes brass that flows and forms the donut. If needed, I turn the O/D and pilot on an oversized neck turn pilot that I've hard turned for the diameter the reamed produces in order to minimize runout. For brass already turned, or after turning, I then bushing size for 0.003" interference fit for the bullet. Then coat the I/D with Neo Lube and seat the bullet. Anneal brass between firings.
I have an old lee target loader that has a reamer. It reams the inside while the case is in the sizing die. It cuts within .0005" of center. As far as roundness of the neck, my dial indicator doesn't move in the inside or outside. Easily within .0001". Not as fancy or expensive as the new stuff, but it works great. I seated a bullet .010" and there was zero runout. I prepped and reamed 72 brass last night and they are perfect. .0035" neck tension. 37 fired cases and 35 new. All turned out the same, and are ready for loading.
Okay I used your method and had great success getting all my case necks within just a few hundred thousandths. I wish LE Wilson made a handle for the reamer, and 21st Century made expanders larger than .309. I think they need to make .3095 and .310.
@@rsvarminters9083 so the LE Wilson Neck Reamer circular handle can be unscrewed? If so, this is amazing news my hands are ripped to shreds after only 20 cases.
@@GriffinReloading I made it through 4 cases using a rag. I tried to counter spin one and that handle came loose. The 284 brass prep I did not long ago, shows it.
@@rsvarminters9083 wow I just put my reamer in a vise and counter spun and it can right off! Now headed to Home Depot to get a nut that will fit. I am going to wait on reaming the rest of my brass until 21st Century ships a the .3095 and .3100 mandrels I ordered last night.
Hello, before using reamerd first check if you have a real doughnut problem or not. If you try to put a bullet by hand in the neck of a FIRED case, it should normally fall inside. If you feel that the bullet gets some resistance at the neck/shoulder junction there is probably a doughnut that you'll need do remove. I know 2 different ways to remove it. First solution you can use those Wilson reamers on a FIRED case only (do not resize or use expanders!!!), this method cuts the excess of material by the inside. The other solution is to neck turn your brass following the usual procedure (sizing, expanding, turning...), except that you need to set the stop of your tool to touch the shoulder just a little bit (since the expander has pushed the excess material of the doughnut to the outside, your cutter will be able to cut it)
Spot on - I have this tool but rarely use it because I turn the necks a little past the shoulder, which prevents donuts from forming as the brass flows forward. The reamer is meant to be used on fired cases. 21st century makes and amazing neck turning tool that you can run with a drill - gives amazing concentricity because the case and cutter float and self align. One thing that has helped as well is that I size without the expander ball and then use expander mandrels. My full size die (I use this before neck turning to get the full neck) is pretty aggressive sizing the neck down and then I run two mandrel operations to get back up to size - I find that the gradual expansion (for 6,5 a .2620 and then .2630) get the insides uniform. Then I turn the necks and my TIR is under .002 - when I use the pressure gauge to seat the bullets - they go in below 40lbs and the runout goes down a little more. Starting with better brass however makes life easier. After firing, I use a bushing die to size and the .2630 expander mandrel. The necks stay nice and true - after a few firings, then I use the reamer.
@@sf2189 Thank you for the comment :) I am aware of the donut thing and do kiss the shoulders when cutting (which I did not do on the 6mm Nosler brass). I was more perplexed at the unevenness of thickness inside the necks and wanted to make it better somehow lol. I usually do not use the expander ball and I like using bushings for the necks to not work the brass too much. Maybe a slight push with a mandrel to get that desired 30-40lbs which the 6.5 is doing now. The 6mm Creed in that Savage is opening the necks up .008 over the seated round. (I miss my tight neck barrels..) I have a fresh box of Lapua for the 6mm, just waiting on the dies from Wilson. The weather is warming up and we got both Creed's ladder tested and started jump testing the 6.5 today. I'm hoping this attention to the necks pay off in the long run. we just need some run time on the guns and well formed brass. I have already seen a couple 0.4" groups from both rifles. Fingers crossed for better results. Thank you for your advise and information.
@@rsvarminters9083 Hello, I also use L.E. Wilson dies because that's well made and gives the best consistency on my ammunition measurments. Maybe you can get the same result with other brands for sizing, but for the seating die Wilson's chamber system on a arbor press is much more consistent than any other "competition" seating die (floating chambers). With the neck tension that I use (0.0015-0.002') the difference between the max and the min seating depth measurments is around 0.001 or under. The only time I've seen a begining of a doughnut appearing on my cases was after 15 reloadings (turned necks) but it wasn't a problem because the bullets were seated over and the boattail wasn't touching it, so I've never used my reamer. I use the same neck turning and sizing methods as S.F. I hope you'll get nice results with your creedmoors, wait and see. I've just received my new tikka custom in 6.5 C.M. but I'm still waiting for the dies !!!
@@rsvarminters9083 I had some Hornday brass from some match ammo that i was working with and had the same issues as you. Funny enough - thats why I bought the reamer - and was given the same advise given to you here about how and when to use it. The really tightening the neck and then mandrel operations made the neck better but ultimately I know the issue carries down the entire case. My life got significantly easier with the Lapua brass and some Whidden dies. You are going to be a very happy man. Enjoy and keep up the great content!!
I just got back into reloading after a twenty year hiatus, LE Wilson had been a Godsend. The quality of their tools are amazing. Compared to my 50 year old equipment, this era has a variety of gear that we never had. Thanks for the information and you have a new subscriber from Canada.
My experience with the Forster trimmers is that you ream the internal case neck after firing , before resizing. If you ream new or resized brass, you will remove too much metal and you won't have sufficient neck tension.
IN ABOUT 1975 I GOT INTO BENCH REST SHOOTING ON A BUDGET SAVAGE 112V SINGLE SHOOT 26" BARREL 22-250 NECK WAS GETTING TIGHT I KNOW BRASS HAD TO BE REMOVED THE MOST LESS EXPENSIVE WAY THAT L COULD FIND WAS RCBS INSIDE NECK REAMING DIE $25.00 AND A I BOUGHT .223 DIAM. HS HAND TAPING REAMER THAT WENT INTO A HAND DRILL IT DID A GREAT JOB, FROM THAT I'M TOLD THEY ARE NO LONGER MADE, I NEED ONE FOR MY 223. IT WAS A VERY SIMPLE WAY OF GETTING RID OF BRASS FLOW IN THE NECK AND BRINGING THE NECK BACK TO SPEC.
Its hard to believe LE Wilson doesn't make a reamer the proper size to ream the brass before firing The bulk of guys looking to ream the ID are forming brass from another cartridge.. We need to ream before firing , not after . I bought a .262" reamer online and will have to adapt it to a tool I'll make after making 22 and 6.5 Creed from 308 brass , You must pay attention to neck thickness as it's too thick ....dangerous firing will occur from a tight chamber in these high pressure rounds.
Keep in mind your calipers when measuring I/D have flats on them and they will measure small, in on 6.5mm probably about 0.001-0.0015" . Small hole gauges and mics will be closer, but of course, that's a PITA. Just anticipate the I/D.
So the reamer will cut on the center axis of the case and not the center of the neck hole? I am reloading fired brass and neck turning the ouside to a thickness of .014" and am wondering if this tool will only cut to the center of the axis which in turn would leave some areas inside the neck untouched by the the reamer? The other question I have is that the wilson reamer for my .264 cartige will finish it to .267 so what will this do to my neck sizing bushing? I currently use a .289 bushing on my .264 cartridge.
Logan, in theory the case body and neck should be in alignment together. Check run-out after firing and after sizing. I use large enough mandrels to open the neck so I will only get the thick spots cut and the donut area at the bottom if any. At most I only want to cut out .001". Removing any thickness from your necks will change the bushing tension.
Great video, just what I was wondering in my process. Where did you say you got those mandrels? I got one from midway for what I thought was 223 and it looks to be for 220 swift. The more I thought about it I figured I’d need several different sizes to accommodate for different neck thickness etc. Again thanks for the video as I’m going down this same rabbit hole. The more gauges I buy the more holes I go down it seems lol
I'm confused as to why you would need to ream the inside of the necks and turn the outside of the necks, both. If you use a neck sizer that works by pressing the outside of the neck against a mandrel, like the Lee Neck Sizing Collet Die, then the ID is set. You should only need to turn the outside of the neck. Even if you use the standard old expander ball, then the ID should be set and you should only need to turn the outsides. One video I watched that discussed reaming said you do this with a fired case only that has pressed against the inside of the chamber, so the outside will be consistent and the inside will be inconsistent. That makes sense, also. But to do both? I don't see the reasoning.
Thank you for the comment Robert. What actually started all of this was I could not get consistent run-out on my loads. I kept buying better dies to solve this but I found out with brass that was already neck turned and fired and worked, that the neck thickness was not even. I could see the mandrel marks inside the necks were only hitting certain spots. The marks gave it away.. After doing this process My run-outs are less than 0.001" The seating presser is way smoother and even. My SD's and ES's are a lot better and the groups show it as well. If you have time check out Eric Cortina's video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TqsLckcdLCQ.html
@@rsvarminters9083 So you are saying that the collet die actually doesn't make the inside diameter consistent because of the collet? I wouldn't think an expander ball sizer would have that problem. Thanks for responding. I'm just beginning to look into this.
From a different point of view, I’m wanting to inside ream to remove donuts from necking up & down & moving shoulders ect , while forming wildcat cartridges , & I want to out side turn also . So I’m looking for the best tool options, that can give me the most flexibility without buying extra tools that I won’t use or just don’t need / or not efficient.
One of the most honest videos I have seen about the challenges of locating an unbiased viewpoint on this topic. Good work, sir! I too use some of 21st Century's different mandrels and dies. I use a progressive for brass prep, decapper, resize, then two different mandrels, first is a full .002" below desired neck and then .0015 below desired neck. I buy them a tad oversized then I polish them down. After that it is all single step stuff. I am anal as well, but I have reservations about touching the inside of the neck with anything other than an expander mandrel. When I am loading, I do lube the neck with a graphite (44 micron) mixed with alcohol. This makes the seating operation a lot easier and prevents cold welding between the bullet and case. I use an AMP press and LE Wilson seating die. I will say this, no one makes a finer tool than LE Wilson. Recently, they got into the standard threaded die arena with FL Bushing Dies. I run one for the 6 & 6.5 Creed & 6 GT. I anneal every firing on the AMP as well. I switched over most of my methods after my 1st F-Class match (a state championship where literal legends showed up) and I asked each of them that I had a chance to corner, what they did for certain steps. AMP annealing, neck turning virgin brass and checking it later with turning sometimes required again, using some neck lubricant when seating, using a press whereby seating force could be measured, culling cases that dropped a flier twice, and most of all using a quality brass/bullet combination. Lapua/Berger was the number one brass to bullet combo. Primer weighing, bullet weighing, and powder charging to the kernel was pretty well up there also. I only spoke to one person that didn't drop powder out of an AutoTrickler and that was because they used a Prometheus. Here's the primary thing I learned. Reloading tools are now the equivalent of lures to bass fisherman. They're made to catch fishermen not fish if you get my meaning. With the quality of machinery and QA now being run by many manufacturers, most brass is quality brass, including Lake City (which I have used several times in competitions as a match brass. It's thick and handles pressure/volume well.) Remember Boyle's Law is in effect after the primer ignites the powder. Everyone of those shooters knew exactly what their muzzle velocity is. They also knew how to read the wind pretty well. My point is this: Make ammo as quality as you can afford and learn to know a flier from the group, but don't spend a ton of money until you can also read wind, or you will be in a hole but not know which tunnel to take. The shooter is still about 80% of where the bullet goes.
Thank you sir for the kind words :) It sounds like I need to come over to your house to do my reloading :) I understand the fishing term all too well.. You are correct about the high percentage is gun management. My 243 I call a 1/2 moa gun. At 600 yards I have a hard time getting close to 1 moa.(too many high 9's) I know the rifle is gtg gut the driver/set-up needs work. It feels really good when you shoot a flyer and can tell yourself "that wasn't me" I feel "ok" with the tools I have currently and can see results that show improvement. My last time out my load showed me an SD of 1 and an ES of 5. and now that 5 is the number to beat lol. I will be putting what I have learned to the real test shortly (when I get my barrel back from the smith) I'm building a 284 and my 1st objective is to clean that 600 yd target then on to the 1k at Williamsport. hmmm, graphite and alcohol... I've been just using graphite. Thanks again.
Does your barrel have a custom size chamber ? I am a retired Tool and Die Maker and I have almost as big a pile of tools and tooling as you do in the quest for a better shooting .243 wssm rifle . My problem is my Browning A-bolt SS Stalker 2 has a production size chamber. Some day I will order a Bartlien 5r 6mm 26" barrel and have a custom chamber reamer made with much tighter tolerances. Setting that thought aside I think first off we need to attain perfect concentricity , everything on the same centerline tip to base. I will assume you have a custom size chamber. The shoulder can be bumped or not , whichever you prefer .. Concerning neck reaming the doughnut , some of the doughnut is in the ID and some on the OD. Working with fireformed brass the OD doughnut should be skim cut , just enough to flush it with the neck OD, not to concerned with concentricity at this point. I now bushing neck size in two increments , 003 smaller then 002 more . First neck size .281 then .279 using a Redding Competition bushing neck die . I then put the .281 bushing back in and place on top of the .281 two ea. .241 bushings to guide a succesion of reamers .2395....2405. Then I change to two stacked .243 bushings to guide a final reamer cut of .242. I want to final finish the ID by honing rather the reaming , seems that would be more consistent than the reamer finish and even final sizing with a mandrel still leaves the reamer cut surface finish . Also considering coating the bullets with HBN . Then I trim the OD to the concentric ID. I need a custom cut chambered barrel at some point in the future. Being retired leaves plenty of time to study and research , Good day to you Sir !
I have thought about honing/polishing a tenth or so off the Berger bullets the section that goes in the neck , to get a more consistent finish !! I think its the inconsistent stiction that is causing the problem. The problem is the surface roughness and inconsistency of a reamer cut neck and the surface finish of the bullet . This factors in the amount of stiction , that is the amount of force it takes to initially break the grip the neck has on the bullet . Improve the surface finishes and get better/consistent stiction results.
If you could make tooling to hold the case with a bullet seated upside down with a hole drilled thru the primer pocket and a rod inserted you could test the stiction of different surface finishes .
Hello Jeff and let me first say, I like you're way of thinking . I too am retired and I see nothing wrong with trying to build a better mouse trap :) The chambers on these rifles are a factory spec. A tight neck chamber would be better for not moving the brass more than needed just like using a bushing size closer to our end results. Not real sure where to start this. We know about stuffing a piece of brass into a smaller hole to make it smaller, then we stuff a piece of copper into that brass hole and want that world to be a perfect place. The OD is easy to obtain the ID not so much. I was ginger with the ID reaming and by eye, the finish was smoother inside than it was prior to the cut. I did actually try to put some compound on a mandrel to polish the ID some but....not a good set-up. I'm a friction minded guy that understands surface area tension, but, round peg in a square hole = not good. I often recheck the OD (with my preset dedicated tool) and cut the OD donut. I feel much better now that I have at least attempted the ID thing and the dial indicator shows improvement. Don't get me started on out or round bullets..lol hmmm, are those neck bushings round? The research goes on. Best of luck to you Sir !
@@jeffreyweekley6974 FYI - I've seen where some reloaders wrap 0000 steel wool around an appropriate size bronze bore brush and use that to polish the inside of the neck
Get a Lee collet neck die. Go around in 1/6 turns about 12 X's. This will make the ID true. Then neck turn outside. I'll bet this is at least as accurate as your method, easier by far, and way less expensive. See Fortune Cookie LC's video.
Curious about something, what is your base line on new brass on neck wall thickness? before it has been fired to see what size you end up with after that, We are talking never been in your rifles chamber.
Fired brass will often even out the outside but the necks are still uneven (inside)when measured. I have not seen any change in them after firing that would help this.
@@rsvarminters9083 sorry for all the questions but as you mentioned in your video information is limited. Just to be clear, you resized your brass, either FL or neck? With or without expander betton in die? Then used a mandrel to size the neck internally before reaming out? Or in what order did you carry out the sequence?
@@neddle7817 Questions are how we learn, so no worries :) Sorry I did not do a better job at explaining things. The only time the necks will be too large is after firing them. That cutter might cut some of the inside at the bottom of the neck (donut area). *Resized* (I always full length with just a .002 shoulder bump with NO ball in the die) the necks are too small for that tool at that point. The reamer for the 6mm is 0.245", which I did not know until after I bought it and had it in my hands. So in *theory*, you want your neck I.D. to be just under that # to only ream the thick spots from the neck. The spring back (all brass are different) is something to consider as well. Sorry, no exact science there, so the expanders I got came in handy. Then, once the outsides are turned, you have a more consistent neck thickness. I try to keep mine at or as near to 0.013" thick. This process can be done on New or Fired, Annealed or Not Brass, but expander size might need adjustments to just remove what we need. I did this to some New Nosler brass that I had to Anneal to make reaming easier...It was some hard brass lol
the reamers are to reduce doughnuts etc from fired brass. You cant run a reamer in there as they are made 3thou over bullet diameter. It wont go into new/sized brass
Thank you for the comment. I understand the reamers are used for donut removal, but, I wanted to ream the whole neck to remove the thick spots for a more consistent tension.
Could wilson make him a reamer .002 less than bullet size? This way he can size his brass then ream out the doughnut, thats what im trying to work out with the forrester reamer and my rcbs trimmer, chances are high I may go with thus wilson reamer if their willing to make me a smaller diameter reamer.
Hornaday Sayko Lay-pewah Triggered yet? 🤪 That said, most of what we learn about our sport is read in books, magazines, or gun blogs, so if you've never heard it pronounced properly you'll say it the way it looks like it should sound, I don't personally have a problem with that. BUT blaming you incorrect pronunciation on your southern accent is a cop-out: even a southerner can learn to pronounce names correctly! Frankly, it's the polite thing to do!
