Necks Too Small?

[malefactor]

I have been reloading for about two years now, so I relatively new. I just recently ran across a problem that is new to me.

I typically de-prime with my hand press, then I resize on my turret. Then I measure and trim cases as necessary. On this particular day with this batch I can not get the trim gauge into the neck of the case. It just gets to a point and stops.

Working through this logically I can only come up with one cause: Since I de-primed separately and I have the pin in my resizing die raised out of the way, the resizing step is squeezing the neck down too much. Does this sound like the problem?

I lowered the decapping pin and tried to resize but them in deforms the neck, making them unusable. If my hypothesis above is correct and I have squeezed them down too much, is there anything I can do to fix theses cases, or have I just screwed up 50 and need to cut my losses.

Any of you old hands have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

 

[EWP]

Re: Necks Too Small?

Not sure what the problem is but just because the neck is to small for the trimmer pilot to fit doesnt mean the brass is junk.

Do you still have the expander ball on the sizing die stem, if so all you should need to do is run the necks back over the expander ball to open them back up.

 

[Advokaten]

Re: Necks Too Small?

Lube is your answer,

put it on the inside of the case to,

and yes with out the expander on the decapping rod, you are most likely squezing/working your case necks to much.

/Chris

 

[427Cobra]

Re: Necks Too Small?

Or buy some Redding Type S bushing dies, the interchangeable bushings allow you to adjust neck tension to what ever you desire and no expander ball.

 

[SPAK]

Re: Necks Too Small?

How many firings do you have on this brass? Any case neck doughnuts inside the neck?? If you have a case that hasn't been resized yet, see if you can drop a bullet through the neck on the fired case. If you can't you might have some doughnuts forming.

 

[Fuzzball]

Re: Necks Too Small?

"..the resizing step is squeezing the neck down too much. Does this sound like the problem?"

Sizers do squeeze necks down "too much" in order to accomidate necks of varying thickness. The purpose of the expander is to open them back to a proper diameter.

 

[malefactor]

Re: Necks Too Small?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Fuzzball</div><div class="ubbcode-body">"..the resizing step is squeezing the neck down too much. Does this sound like the problem?"

Sizers do squeeze necks down "too much" in order to accomidate necks of varying thickness. The purpose of the expander is to open them back to a proper diameter.

</div></div>

Ok, I get this, but since I am using Lee dies and the expander is just a tapered decapping pin...how does it do both jobs at once? My first thought is not very well...since it is deforming the cases when I try to do both at once.

And how did I never have this problem before? I've loaded over 1000 rounds of .223, but this is the first time I have had to worry about too long, and boy did it open a can of worms.

Is there a way to set the adjustment of the resize die and the decapping pin/ expander, to perform both operations? I set the die up per the included instructions and like I say it has been fine until now, but there are no specific instructions for the proper expansion.

Thanks for the info, by the way.

 

[EWP]

Re: Necks Too Small?

It does not do both operations at the same time, it sizes the neck and then expands seperate as the case exits the die.

Your problem is the expander ball is set to high and the neck is binding between the expander ball(tapered part of the rod) and where the neck is sized down in the die.

To fix this lower the expander back down to midway of the die so the neck doesn't contact the expander until the case neck is free & clear of the sizing part of the die and on it's way out.

I set mine like this, run the case all the way in the die with the expander set as low as possible, then lower the ram until the neck is just clear(completely clear) of the neck sizing part of the die, then raise the expander until it just contacts the bottom of the neck and tighten it down.

This sets the expander as high as possible and assures that the neck isn't trying to pull over the expander while it's still in the neck sizing part of the die so nothing can bind up on you.

 

[malefactor]

Re: Necks Too Small?

See that's what I'm talking about! That's why we have this community!

Between all you guys I think I have fixed the problem and I learned a thing or two in the process.

Thanks for all your help.