Anybody turn their case necks ?

[lostdog99]

I have been loading 30+ years . . .but never turned case necks (trimmed yes, TURNED no).
I need a tips, tricks, and "pitfalls" lesson on turning case necks.

Background: I love my 300 blk. I am converting Lapua 223 rem cases to 300 blk. Due to the thickness of the case walls I am having some chambering issues. I need to turn the casenecks down a thousandth or 2. I have about 1000 to do. I need tooling and technique advice.

Whatever you can provide will be appreciated.

 

[TheAccountant]

If you’re getting interference between the case neck and the case, you’re going to have to take more than one or two thou off. I usually shoot for 3-4 thou of clearance in my bolt guns. In a semi auto, you’re probably going to want a touch more.

It’s a slow and tedious process no matter how you do it and you’re going to regret it after about the 10th case. Assuming you need more than 1 or 2 thou, you’re going to have to make multiple passes to avoid trashing cases. There are options out there from K&M that are around $100 that work fine. The Don Nielsen pumpkin is probably the next step up from there. And then you start getting into the case lathe setups that are pricey.

Instead of modifying your cases, why don’t you look into opening up the neck of your chamber? It’s my understanding there are two common variations of the 300 blk readers - one for new and one for converted brass. I would measure the outside diameter of a few loaded rounds and then look at a converted brass reamer print to see if that would give you clearance. Even if an off the shelf reamer won’t give you the clearance you need, I think you’d still be ahead $ and time wise just having a reamer ground to your specs.

Lastly, any reason you’re using Lapua brass for this? Most are using LC, so most stuff will be designed to work with that brass. That might solve your problem too.

 

[brandyspaw]

I used to shoot a heavy barrel Remington M700 in 243 Winchester and had to turn case necks when reloading for it, It may have had a tight chamber but I guess short neck cartridges can have this issue. Also, its common when necking down larger cartridge cases to other smaller neck calibers as well.

Anyway, after reloading I found the rounds hard to chamber in the rifle despite being trimmed to the correct overall length and properly resized. I wound up having to get a case neck turning tool from Sinclair International which solved my problem.

 

[Flash]

You don't normally turn case necks because of a tight chamber, you do it to make the case necks uniform thickness for better accuracy.

Been doing it for 50 years for my precision rifles.

 

[lostdog99]

Thank you both very much.

Flash- I needed the confirmation that opening the chamber may be the right thing to do. I have read several of your posts and have absolute confidence in the knowledge you provide.

My employer has an account with PTG. I will check to see if I can get a discount.

Lol . . .you are correct in questioning the wisdom of converting Lapua brass instead of buying already plentiful and converted LC brass. I don't have an answer for you on that . . .other than I didn't want these lapua cases with damaged mouths to go to waste. (They were damaged during our priming process).

Again, a HUGE thank you to both of you !

 

[Flash]

Thanks for the vote of confidence lostdog99

I try to help people as much as I can.

There are a lot of experienced reloaders, but not so many knowledgeable reloaders and there's a huge difference.

 

[lostdog99]

You could not be more correct!

 

[Dogslayer]

I have a Forster Hand Outside Neck Turner. I primarily use it for my most accurate rifles. A Tikka T3 in .308 and my Savage Model 111 in 6.5 mm-.284.
Never ran a test to see if outside turning improved the groups but just knowing that the case neck thickness is uniform, should make the bullet is concentric to the bore.