204Ruger

I'm just learning about turning the outside neck on my brass. In your opinion what is the best, quickest, easiest tool to turn the outside necks and the best tool to measure case thickness? I'm not on a budget so I want to buy the best tool I can get to do a good easy job. I assume the 1st step is neck sizing to make sure the ID is round. After that I'm pretty lost. Could you briefly explain the procedure from start to finish. Anything I should know, I'd appreciate you telling me. If it makes a difference, 80% of my brass is Lapua or Norma & 10% Nosler, Hornaday if I can not get any thing else. Also my loading is confined to 20, 22, & 24 caliber ammo. I really appreciate your opinion & help.
Jim D

Hi Jim, I'll take a run at this one based only on my experience.

I'm really liking my 21st Century Lathe and turning tool. I use it with a Bosch i-Driver and I can turn up a storm.
A few things about how I do it.

First, I do not turn Hornet or Bee brass. I think it's too thin to begin with. If I stumble on a chamber that requires it, I will turn as needed. So far, no need.

I skim-turn everything else. By that I mean I set the cutter so it only takes off the high side of the brass neck. Usually this means about 50-70% of the neck gets cut. I also set the length of cut so it gets in to the shoulder a bit and makes a smooth transition. I think this is especially important when you size down the neck (22 to 20 or 22 to 17) since the brass has to go somewhere and cutting into the shoulder removes the doughnut of brass.

I do neck size new brass but more importantly, I trim them all to uniform length since the cut length is based on the overall brass length.

Next I run the brass over an expander mandrel (21st Century). I lube the snot out of the case mouth with olive oil. I know, but it makes me want a pizza after and it works well. I run the brass over the mandrel 2-3 times to make sure the neck is uniformly round. The expander mandrel insures that the neck turns smoothly on the turning arbor in the turning tool. Both mandrel and arbor are caliber specific. The actual cutter is not caliber specific but is shoulder angle specific.

Finally, I dip the neck in olive oil once again and put it in the lathe shell holder to run it through the turning tool. The tool allows both length and depth of cut adjustments. I only do 10 or so at a time so the arbor cools a while.

I'm currently turning Lapua brass for a TAC 20. The reamer print for the chamber indicated a 0.230" neck diameter. I skim-turned 15 pieces of brass and fired them. There were some pressure signs. The fired brass had an OD of 0.232" indicating an actual chamber neck diameter of 0.233 to 0.234.
Lapua brass is considered to have thick necks. So, I'm turning all these necks to result in 0.229" loaded diameter. This gives me 4 to 5 thou. room in the neck to allow the brass to expand and release the bullet. I tried it with 15 and things are working perfectly.

Sorry for being windy and I hope this helps you get started.

Del

Oh yeah, this is the system I'm describing, except tor the electric driver.
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/?s= ... ning+lathe

Sounds like Del has you lined out. I will share what comes to mind, the differences are mainly due to using tools from a different manufacturer.

Lube: I always used Sinclair Neck Turning Lube and liked it. This last Winter I was running low and feeling cheap so I asked what other guys were using and received many different suggestions. One was Cutting & Grinding Oil. I had a bottle from NAPA (765-1526) and gave it a try. This is a water soluble oil but, I use it straight and absolutely love how it cools and lubes the case and turning mandrel. I just pour a bit into a very small cup and dip the case mouth less than 1/4" in to the oil. My turned cases get a quick bath in thinner and a shot of compressed air when done. Otherwise. the cases tend to pack with media when tumbling.

Turning Tools: Ideally, your turning fixture and expander should come from the same manufacturer. They are designed to compliment each other dimensionally. Sinclair, K&M, & PMA all make good stuff. I use tools from K&M. The reason being that I spin the TOOL instead of the CASE in a four jaw chuck on a small lathe. The shape of the K&M tool clamps nicely in the chuck. Doing it this way allows me to keep the tool spinning while I change cases, minimizing starts and stops. The K&M case holder is a bit funky. It has a hole through it and you insert a small rod (or allen wrench) through it to tighten it on the case head. I found that you can put a die locking ring on it instead and it becomes 'tool free'. Works faster AND easier.

Measuring: You can easily measure after seating a bullet but, this does not help much when you are getting dialed in. Get a good tubing micrometer. Holland and Sinclair both offer one with a modified anvil and ratchet feature. I use an ancient Starrett unit mounted in a small vise. Any of these tools will give you accurate readings at any time on an empty case with a little practice.

Finishing: Your inside neck chamfer will remain unchanged but you will need to chamfer the outside and polish the case mouth after turning.

Outside neck turning and annealing....... I know guys who avoid both like they are the plague. Once you jump in, neither one of these 'chores' are difficult or terribly time consuming. Hopefully others will chime in. There are several different methods to turning necks. At least one discerning board member uses Forster tools for this and it is a different method. I do know that he would not settle for sub-par results. Maybe he will give both of us a little education on how it works.

Jon

dsandfort, Ramos, thank ya'll both very much. Sounds kind of hard but I'm a fast learner & my buddy is a master machinist, has his own shop, so he can take care of me on the measurement end. Thanks again,
Jim D

The individual who I had hoped would post on this must be out on a Skippy Safari. It is that time of year!

A couple of more points;

1. You're looking for a uniformity of about .0003 all the way around between the high and the low sides. Truthfully, I didn't have to turn my Lapua 221 FB brass.

2. As mentioned, you don't want the brass to be thin. With that you need to know how much clearance you have between the case and the chamber. This difference is spring back and the more there is, the more the neck gets worked. To determine, measure the OD of the neck of loaded ammunition and measure again after it has been fired, the difference is the spring back.

HTH,

I use a hornady neck turning tool. it cost about $60 from mid south shooting supply. you need a pilot for each caliber, it comes with one and the extras aren't very expensive. after trimming a case it leaves quite a burr on the case neck and I use this tool to remove that and it leaves a perfectly smooth case neck where the burr was. it can be adjusted to take as little or as much off the case neck as you want, there is a handy tool to turn the device with but I use a cordless reversible 1/2" drill which you will want to use as turning the tool by hand gets old by the time you finish the first case. I use it on up to .308 size brass by chucking up the case, be careful not to apply too much pressure if you use the drill to ream the primer crimps on military brass as it is possible to crush the case. this is quite easy to avoid.
after turning the neck on the outside I use the inside the neck deburring tool but be very careful as it is easy to take too much off of the inside of the case neck.

Here is a couple options I use for measuring tools, both from Redding. I also use the K&M neck turning tool to turn to what I want thickness to be then using neck bushings I try to keep .002 tension on most of my calibers except competition rifles.

I'm getting ready to convert a bunch of .223 brass to .20VT and will be getting into case neck turning myself. I've seen it done and once the right tools are in place and set up it doesn't look too bad. I spent most of yesterday watching youtube videos and checking out the different types of tooling available. Pretty sure I'll be going with the 21st Century set up with the lathe stand. The whole works including the expanding die, turning mandrel and arbor which are all caliber specific will run about $305. There are definitely less expensive ways to go but if you do your research there are some differences in adjustability and tolerances. The same with ball micrometers to measure the case thicknesses. RCBS makes a great looking setup called the Case Master but I don't know if I need all the features it has. A small hand held micrometer is probably how I'll go for now but the concentricity guage from 21st century looks like the best set up out there with a turning wheel that keeps the brass in place. Keep in mind that I haven't done this myself yet but I did quite a bit of looking yesterday. Hopefully, some experienced shooters out there will jump in offer their opinions/suggestions. Randy.

Randy, get yourself a Mitutoyo Tubing Micrometer (or Sterrett etc.) for precise case neck thickness measuring. A standard outside mic will not do the trick. There is probably cheaper alternatives from outfits like Harbor Freight if cost is an issue.

I had the RCBS unit you mention years ago. Not really precise. It went down the road and was replaced by proper machine shop measuring tools years ago. It's sure better than nothing, but you'll quickly outgrow it and 'move up' so to speak.

Thanks Rick! After reading a lot of the reviews and even though they are just down the road a bit, I doubt I'll be getting the RCBS unit. All of my reloading equip. is "green" and I do like to stay brand loyal to companies with great customer service but probably not in this case. One thing I've been trying to find out is what the diameter of the stationary rod/mandrel is on some of the ball micrometers? I only saw one that listed the diameter and it was .19 which is to big if I start doing some .17 Fireball (hopefully my next build). Randy.

You can get a Starret from Sinclair Intl. It will measure .17 and up.

Now that is one nice looking precision tool. Have to check it out. Bill K

I have that very one. I love it. Its weighted on the bottom so both your hands are free while taking measurements. The round mandrel and flat micrometer tip work so well together.

Sorry if it seems I've hijacked this thread but maybe one more question to help me figure this out. It seems there are two different sets of tooling for measuring case necks. One ( ball micrometer/case neck thickness gauge) measures the thickness of the case neck. The other measures the concentricity of the case neck-like with a dial indicator. When turning the necks and removing the high spots aren't you accomplishing the same thing? Please help me if I'm missing something or aren't thinking about this right. Tooling for either method runs about the same but it seems like with a concentricity type indicator bullet runout could also be checked. Although, that Starret gauge is one sexy looking tool! Randy.