Senor kraky,
I have printed out your post and posted it on my refrigerator for future reference. It hit the heart of the issue dead center. I will follow that protocol for any cartridges that I don't have an "S" die for. I am humbled, and I hope you are blushing.
JCN

Thanks for the suggestions and information everyone--I'll keep working on it --Regards--Don.

Hot Core I appreciate the advice, that souds like a good way to go. I will try that this weekend at the range. I load some rounds for several different rifles where I would like to f/l resize for all, so I may invest a little more time/money to try and get better results on the cases I do f/l resize. Thanks for the help. --Fish

About 90% of neck concentricity problems are in your expander. Centering it and squaring your die to the shellholder and press will help some of it. It's more likely your necks are being excessively sized and expanded and that is where they are thrown out.

One way to check is to size without the expander and check. If it's OK then the expander is the problem. If it's not OK then it's either inherent in the die or your die isn't square to the press and shellholder.

Redding S dies eliminate many of those problems plus you'll get better case life.

I believe the dies from Sinclair you are talking about are the expander dies used prior to neck turning and truly have no application in the reloading process except for that.

You CAN seat your bullets without the expander if they'll go into the mouth but you will have variance in the grip of the bullets if the neck is sized way down. Measure the diameter of the neck after sizing and then measure it with a seated bullet. That difference in those two values shouldn't exceed about .004" for reasonable and consistent grip. Any more than that WILL affect accuracy. Also, the difference between a sized case without expander, and the fired case, shouldn't exceed about .011". If it does, talk to RCBS. They might suggest one of two things, send the die back to polish out the neck, or having you polish the expander on a drill chuck. If the die is within those parameters then you can work on centering your expander. That can take time but it can also be productive in eliminating the runout.

Thanks Monte, I have tried the o-ring trick and it didn't work. I'll try setting up the expander like you suggested, I was wondering if that was plausable... don't pick up the difference if I size the cases and leave the expander out.

.002" under gives you .001" grip considering the springback of the brass. You'll have problems with bullet setback in magazine guns that recoil moderately or more. If you could maintain the .002" grip, that's what I use and that is adequate for even heavy kickers.

Had the same problem with my 7mm. Rem. Mag. I have gone to the Lyman "M" die to expand the necks, it is an extra step, but this has reduced runout significantly, and I believe has helped to reduce stretching the cases as well. I simply partially resize the cases and then run them thought the neck expander die.

Hey Fish, If you are reloading a bottlenecked case for a bolt action rifle, you can totally "ignore" all the bad concentricity issues by simply Partial Full Length Resizing(PFLR).

Start with your Full Length Resizing Die 1-nickle thickness above the Shell Holder. You can leave the Decapper/Expander in the Die, just be careful not to try and "Hole Punch" the nickle as you get started.

Lube a fired case, squash it, wipe the lube off and try the empty case in the chamber. Screw the FL Die in 1/4 turn and repeat this until you have difficulty closing the bolt on the empty case. At that point reduce the amount you screw the Die into the press to about 1/16th of a turn.

When the bolt closes easily, you have screwed the FL Die in just a bit too far. The bolt should close on the empty case with just a bit of resistance and you have a PFLRed case.

This causes the CenterLine of the Case and the CenterLine of the Chamber to be forced into alignment between the Bolt-Face and Chamber-Shoulder. Then you can totally forget about Neck Concentricity since it has little to no effect on accuracy when a case is PFLRed.

Or you can continue to drive yourself crazy trying to make the Caseneck straight. PFLRed cases are inherently more accurate than Neck Sized cases. And the really nice thing about it, it is easy to prove to yourself. Just load 15-18 both ways, have a buddy hand them to you so you don't know which is which(Blind Test) and shoot all 15-18 of one type into a single group. Do the same for the others and then compare the groups.

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If you are shooting a DGR, then all cases should be Full Length Resized. Here Neck concentricity doesn't amount to a hill of beans either due to the size of the Game and the distance shots will be taken.

I guess we do disagree. In either case, when using an expander, the entire case is NOT supported in any way when the neck passes into or out of the expander. In the case of a conventional die, as the case is withdrawn from the neck, the body and everything else is free floating. The expander doesn't even touch the neck until most of the case is out of the die. The only exception is in the Forster sizing dies where the expander is right at the neck. In the case of the Sinclair, the neck is passed into the expander in the up stroke and that die doesn't even have a part of it anywhere near the rest of the case. In either case with no support of the body, it enables the neck to expand unevenly at the neck/shoulder joint which has the potential to offset, which it will if it must expand more than minimally.



Also, in the case of the Sinclair, the mandrell's are .001" under caliber. Expanding with them may not provide sufficient grip for the bullet. The only difference between the two for expanding is that one expands on the upstroke of the press, the other on withdrawal.



In any case, we do disagree.

I have the Sinclair mandrels in .22, .243, .277, and .308 and all are .002 under caliber. I also have the neck turning mandrels for same which are .001 over the 'standard' size; these are the mandrels which are .001 under caliber. The extra .001 makes neck turning a lot easier. I like the mandrels so much that I had a gunsmith make me some custom mandrels for my .375; also .002 and .001 under caliber. Sinclair doesn't offer the mandrels above .338 and cannot/will not make them larger than .338. I don't have a bullet grip problem inside sizing .002 under.

Hey Fish, You got some good advice on how to address the problem if you choose to stick with Neck Sizing. In my situation, I'm just not interested in all the hassle associated with "worrying about" the case necks being off a few thousandths.

On the other hand, if doing so gave me better accuracy, then I might wade in and wrestle with it more. But, I do encourage you to try the "Blind Test" and see which method works the best for you. If Neck Sizing shoots the best, it would surprise me because of the number of times I've run a comparison.

You will need to lube your cases and then remove it, so that is a bit more hassle than Neck Sizing.

Best of luck to you.