About 3 choices here. What do you guys do to resize the neck of a case that you have pulled a bullet from because the load was unsatisfactory?

1. Don't worry about resizing, just reload and insert bullet. A little less neck tension won't hurt anything as long as the bullet is seated firmly.

2. Partially Resize the case neck With the expander ball removed. Since you are not resizing near the web, there is Less working of the brass and don't have to dump the powder if you just want to add a few more grain or use a different bullet. There will be tighter neck tension where it has been resized, but maybe not much depending on the die size.

3. Dump the powder and resize the neck all the way with expander ball in place to maintain same size of neck from mouth to shoulder.

If y'all have better ideas please educate me. I have several dozen to pull and trying to find which is easiest but not sacrifice accuracy. Thanks, Merg

I've done a few with my old Lee Reloader. That's the thing you use when you just start out, thinking you'll never need to do more than 20 rounds a month. I have to hammer the case into the thing, but it resizes the neck just fine. For doing lots and lots of cases (I did 5,000 over Christmas), I remove the decapping pin of my RCBS dies and do a full resize...

Fir best results, yo uhave to resize. So I pull the expander/decapper & resize. Then load as usual.

to tell the truth i've done it all ways and didn't really notice any difference in the shooting end

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
to tell the truth i've done it all ways and didn't really notice any difference in the shooting end

Same here.....

But I do feel better if I pull the decapper and FL resize.....just can't say I gained anything!

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
to tell the truth i've done it all ways and didn't really notice any difference in the shooting end

Same here.....

But I do feel better if I pull the decapper and FL resize.....just can't say I gained anything!

Yep

Does one really need to do anything at all to the brass? ie. resize?

I understand the neck tension on cases that you have pulled the bullet may be reduced. Does resizing make one "feel better" or does it make a difference in accuracy.

I've done it both ways. Can't say I've seen much of a difference in accuracy. But my norm is to resize the neck because it makes me feel better.

quote:

But my norm is to resize the neck because it makes me feel better.

Yep. You know you did all you could...

quote:

Don't worry about resizing, just reload and insert bullet. A little less neck tension won't hurt anything as long as the bullet is seated firmly.

Well, actually you won't have a bit of difference in the "tension" if you pull and reseat or resize/expand again.

What most people call tension is only the amount of interference fit between the bullet and neck inside diameter. That IS NOT bullet tension-pull, it's just a poor fit. Real tension is how much it takes to pull the bullet, not how hard it is to seat it.

Most expander buttons are as much as 3-4 thou under bullet diameter and that increases seating force but seating the bullet stretches the neck permanently. So, you will end up with the same real tension/pull you would have if you originally used an expander of full bullet diameter.

SO - if you fire the bullets as they are or pull the bullets and just re-seat them, you will have exactly the same permanant tension/pull you will get if you size/expand and re-seat them. Brass elasticty limits that to about 1 - 1.5 thou, no more.

I've found that common (excessive) bullet "tension" (the poor fit due to undersized expanders) is a major contributor to run-out in loaded ammo.