Gents,

I recently posted about buying the Lee Collet neck sizer. I got it and reloaded some fire formed brass. It was sure nice to not have to lube.

But I'm having a problem. The resulting neck tension appears to be a little loose. Loading Nosler Partitions, the bullets seem to slide in just a bit too easy. They don't fall in, but require very little force to seat using my also new Redding Competition seater. I've tried using a bit more force when doing the neck sizing to the point I feel like I'm about to pull the press out of the bench.

So am I doing something wrong? Is there a problem with the die? I'm not crimping, I'm wondering if that isn't the solution.

BTW, the rounds I fired gave horrible results.

quote:

BTW, the rounds I fired gave horrible results.

Was that based on an established good load or a new one?

All a neck smaller than about 1-1.5 thou under bullet size does is increase the effort to seat. And that also increases runout.

Once the case neck has been squeezed to the Lee collet's mandral that's as far as you can go. Pushing harder won't squeeze that steel rod any smaller but it can push the top cap right out of the die body.

Crimping is helpful for tubular magazine rifles but not much else.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim C. <><:

quote:

BTW, the rounds I fired gave horrible results.

Was that based on an established good load or a new one?

All a neck smaller than about 1-1.5 thou under bullet size does is increase the effort to seat. And that also increases runout.

Once the case neck has been squeezed to the Lee collet's mandral that's as far as you can go. Pushing harder won't squeeze that steel rod any smaller but it can push the top cap right out of the die body.

Crimping is helpful for tubular magazine rifles but not much else.

Concerning the loads, both. I tried it with two loads in 200gr NP's that were giving 1" to sub 1" groups in full length resized brass. Let's just say that this completely blew out to the point of not being worth measuring with the neck sized only brass. The other two loads were 220gr NP's that were first timers for my .300 Win Mag.

LEE Collet Dies are designed to size the brass so it will just hold onto the bullet. That is normal. The original idea was to seat the bullet out to the lands to develop proper start pressure. Strictly a single load proposition, such as benchrest shooting.

If you want to load multiple rounds to work through a magazine, tubular or otherwise, you will need to use the FCD to put a light crimp on the bullet. Otherwise, if you load the mag, the bullets will unseat in recoil. Plus, you'll get inconsistent start pressures and erratic velocities. You can also chuck the mandrel in an electric drill and reduce it's size with some silicon carbide paper. This will let the brass size down smaller and grip the bullet tighter.

Oh baloney! Of course the (Lee) sizer is not made to give you practically no neck tension. The cases must be sized to give you a decent amount of neck tension - e.g. such that you can bring your rounds hunting without having to worry about bullets shifting or even falling out...

quote:

Originally posted by 7MMNut:
But I'm having a problem. The resulting neck tension appears to be a little loose. Loading Nosler Partitions, the bullets seem to slide in just a bit too easy. They don't fall in, but require very little force to seat using my also new Redding Competition seater.

BTW, the rounds I fired gave horrible results.

If you use the search function here, you'll see that there are tons of people who have run into this problem with the Lee Collet die. The die never gives you a massive amount of neck tension, but it can be made to work better than what it currently is for you.

The standard solution is to either get Lee to supply you an under size mandrel, or to polish down your own mandrel .001-.002". That usually does the trick. In addition, you must realize, that because the Collet die is designed to give relatively light neck tension, there can be a problem with sizing work hardened cases. In that case, annealing can be a solution, as can new cases.

The low neck tension of the Collet is why I have largely stopped using this die. When you get poor accuracy results at low neck tension, it often has to do with varying tension - less of a problem if you get tension up to about .003"-.004", say. But, don't despair, as long as you get the neck tension increased to a decent level, the Collet die can and does load some pretty straight ammo.

Good luck.

- mike

My first Lee Collet Neck Die was for a Marlin 336 in .36 Remington (I did use a Lee crimp die as well but I do that for FL sized stuff too). It did so good I've since gotten them in .22-250, .243, 7-08, .308. .30-06 and .300 WM.

I've lathe turned a few mandrals in smaller diameters to test but I've dropped it; seems Lee pretty well knows what they're doing. But I don't usually crimp for the bolt rifles.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mho:
Oh baloney! Of course the (Lee) sizer is not made to give you practically no neck tension. The cases must be sized to give you a decent amount of neck tension - e.g. such that you can bring your rounds hunting without having to worry about bullets shifting or even falling out...

Quote from LEE web site:

"Maximum accuracy is usually achieved by seating the bullet out far enough to touch or almost touch the rifling. This provides the shot start pressure normally supplied by the crimp. That's why a dead length bullet seater is included to complete the most accurate reloading system ever made. These dies size only the neck to preserve the perfect fit of fire forming. Only reload cases that have been fired in your gun. Not recommended for autoloaders, slide or lever action guns."

"These dies are the favorite of the bench rest crowd as there is no other die that can produce a more accurate cartridge."

How do you like your baloney cooked?

quote:

"Maximum accuracy is usually achieved by seating the bullet out far enough to touch or almost touch the rifling. This provides the shot start pressure normally supplied by the crimp. That's why a dead length bullet seater is included to complete the most accurate reloading system ever made. These dies size only the neck to preserve the perfect fit of fire forming. Only reload cases that have been fired in your gun. Not recommended for autoloaders, slide or lever action guns."

"These dies are the favorite of the bench rest crowd as there is no other die that can produce a more accurate cartridge."

Not seeing where it is a super low neck tension. The one I had sucked until I turned it down.

A technique I settled on with the Lee die is to rotate the case in the shellholder 1/3, cycle the ram another 1/3 and do it again. Takes less time to than to say and I get very good uniform neck tension. I would say very close to raditional die neck tension. It also requires less force on the ram as opposed to a single cycle.

quote:

A technique I settled on with the Lee die is to rotate the case in the shellholder 1/3, cycle the ram another 1/3 and do it again

I'll have to try that.

I use the Lee neck sizing die on my 6mm and reduced the group from 1" to about 1/2". If you have trouble you can polish the mandrel but check the instruction to make sure you have the die properly adjusted. Lee recommends that you adjust it and tighten the lock nut with the press at full sroke.

quote:

Originally posted by mdvjrp93:
I use the Lee neck sizing die on my 6mm and reduced the group from 1" to about 1/2". If you have trouble you can polish the mandrel but check the instruction to make sure you have the die properly adjusted. Lee recommends that you adjust it and tighten the lock nut with the press at full sroke.

Not the way I read this from the Lee site FAQ, click on "Dies and Die Questions" then on "Lee Collet Adjustment"

quote:

Collet Die adjustment

If you are using the Collet die in an RCBS Rockchucker press, or a similar design that toggles over center at the top of the (ram) stroke, this applies far greater force than is necessary to resize just the neck of the case, and can damage the die or collapse the case. To correct this situation, adjust the die two full turns into the press after the die contacts the shell holder with the ram at the top of its stroke, rather than one as in the instructions. This will stop the press before it gets to the toggle over point. With a press without having an over center feature, apply about 25 lbs. of pressure to the handle once it bottoms out to resize the case. On most presses, this translates to over 600 lbs of pressure on the ram.

IOW if you thread the die in an additional 2 full turns you will not cam over the press. There is a "full stroke" sentence on the "Lee Collet Pressure" section but I believe you are misintrepreting that if you set the press to cam over.

The first thing I do with a Lee Collet is to run the lock nut up to the top of the threads



when sizing this puts the lever at the most horizontal position



and makes it easier to estimate 25# of weight on the handle without bending down.

If you are camming over your press then you are not using it according to the Lee instructions.

Oh, someone else who has found Lee Collet Dies don't necessarily give optimal accuracy. What a surprise. That's a discovery I made several years ago.

I do like Lee Factory Crimp Dies though and they might very well work to tighten up the bullets.

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The low neck tension of the Collet is why I have largely stopped using this die.

+2 Mikee!

Like an Idiot I purchased a .223 Remington Lee Collet Die and then a .243 Winchester Lee Collet Die.



This equals the Standard Syndrome ..... "Doing the same thing twice expecting a different Result".

I'm pretty good w/reloading equipment ..... but got so tired of Dicking around with these two Dies in an attempt to obtain the proper neck tension. One too tight (yeah, I know not always a complaint); the other too loose (always a Bummer!)

I don't do alot of griping but in this case both were so obviously outa spec as to be next to useless.

You need to measure to know what's wrong and how much neck tension you have.

You need to set up the die correctly.

The mandrel may be slightly oversize.

You cases may need annealing.

If you don't measure you are shooting in the dark.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobster:

quote:

Originally posted by mho:
Oh baloney! Of course the (Lee) sizer is not made to give you practically no neck tension. The cases must be sized to give you a decent amount of neck tension - e.g. such that you can bring your rounds hunting without having to worry about bullets shifting or even falling out...

Quote from LEE web site:

"Maximum accuracy is usually achieved by seating the bullet out far enough to touch or almost touch the rifling. This provides the shot start pressure normally supplied by the crimp. That's why a dead length bullet seater is included to complete the most accurate reloading system ever made. These dies size only the neck to preserve the perfect fit of fire forming. Only reload cases that have been fired in your gun. Not recommended for autoloaders, slide or lever action guns."

"These dies are the favorite of the bench rest crowd as there is no other die that can produce a more accurate cartridge."

How do you like your baloney cooked?

Yo Bobster,

I don't disagree with you about the accuracy enhancing potential of seating bullets into the lands. Bench rest shooters have been doing this for umpteen years, and I'm not about to argue with their for results.

I don't believe in Lee's marketing statement about the Collet die being a favourite die for bench rest applications. But hey, marketing is what marketing is, and whatever it takes to sell their product...

I originally reacted to this part of your post:

quote:

Originally posted by Bobster:
LEE Collet Dies are designed to size the brass so it will just hold onto the bullet. That is normal.

I was attempting to make the point, that the effect "7MMNut" sees is anything but normal (even with the Collet), and that he can and should fix this SNAFU. Yes, the Collet die does not give a lot of tension, but it is not intended to give tension so low, that bullets almost fall out or move around in the case neck.

In my experience, if you do run into this situation, as people regularly do with the Collet, attempts to fix the problem with a crimp will come to nothing. A (factory) crimp can be beneficial in addition to light neck tension, but it can't replace it. So, IMHO, 7MMNut needs to fix his tension issue, and then decide whether it is worth crimping in addition.

7MMNut, you have received lots of advice here. A lot of it centers around measuring neck tension. Just to be sure you know people are talking about, this is how to measure tension: 1) measure diameter of a sized case neck (call this A), 2) measure diameter of this case neck with bullet seated (B). Neck tension (in ") is B-A. (Sorry if I state the obvious).

- mike

First of all thank you to all for taking the time to post replies and help me out. I did do a search on this topic prior to posting and didn't find what I was looking for. Probably operator error, but I did try.

I was busy last night and did not have a chance to act on some of the comments posted. But what I think I'll do first is use the collet die to necksize the brass I just used along with some brass I know to be fired only once. I'll then take up your idea mho of measuring the neck tension and see if there's any difference.

If not, I'd be inclined to think that the mandrel in my die was apparently on the outer end of the manufacturing tolerance. If the newer brass is tighter well then I guess I have a decision to make about my older brass.

I'm just experimenting with some things here gents. My reloading experience up till now has been just the basics. I started a few years ago on just my 7mm which up until last year was the only rifle I was using for hunting. The other rifle I had at the time a .270 for some reason has not been used in the last nine years. When I started reloading I just did the basic steps for a load I use on deer and another for elk. I got excellent results from both loads straight out of the Nosler manual and as I say with just the basic steps.

Now I'm progressing in the hobby having added a 300WM, 223 and 375H&H to the cabinet. How will all of these efforts pan out? I don't know, I hope with better accuracy. But if it doesn't and I've thrown a few bucks away well that's okay at least I'll have explored it out. And if I have thrown money away it won't have been much, far less than having purchased one firearm that you end up sorry you bought.

Thanks again for the replies, I'll let you know what I find out.

I use a Lee collet die on my 308 win. Outstanding accuracy. I have a factory crimp I use on my 257 Robts. Great accuracy with the Bob.

One should really read the instructions very closely! I did not have the die set correctly in the press. After re-reading the instructions, setting the die again, re-reading the instructions one more time and once again resetting the die one more time and kicking my own butt a bit, I sized two sets of brass. The first set was previously fired and only neck sized using the collet die. The inside diameter measured .305" on both pieces. The other two previously fired brass pieces were full length resized using RCBS FL die and measured .3025 and .302 inches. So, the bullets are now seating with more neck tension on the neck sized only but definitely less than using the RCBS FL die.

Thanks for the help and sorry gents it was my mistake, kick away if you feel the need.

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Originally posted by woods:

Indeed bulldog, indeed.