Hi guys,

Just received my Hornady neck turning tool today and seem to be having a few problems with it.
The instructions say that I should be able to “adjust the mandrel until the cutter is properly placed to cut the entire neck of the caseâ€. This doesn’t seem possible – firstly the cutter is nowhere wide enough to cover the entire neck. Secondly, the cutter only seems capable of cutting the thinnest sliver on its outmost edge. Thirdly, even when cutting then adjusting the mandrel, I’m left with fine ridges on the neck. Fourthly is does not seem possible to cut to the very end of the neck.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Kevin.

I had some experience with it about five years ago.....and at that time it was a very good tool.

The handles and hand motion should feed the case into the cutter rotating all the time.

Set the cutter depth with the adjusting wheel and feed the case to it and to the end of the case neck by adjusting the mandrel so that the case neck bottoms out on the mandrel.

I'm not sure what changes may have occurred to that tool in the last few years but the one I had was a very fine tool...it worked beautifully...far better than Sinclair

Vapodog,

Thanks for the reply
With your description, I’ve got it working well now.
From reading the instructions, I was expecting the tool to cut the entire neck without moving the case in and out. Doh!
Shame the mandrel is not a thou thicker, there is a small amount of lateral movement that cant do any thinh for the accuracy of the cut.
Anyway, I’ve cleaned 20 cases up now - removing anywhere from 70-95%. Was just going to test them on my range, but the wind has just got up!

Thanks again.
Kev.

I'm not sure but I think this is a new product for Hornady this year.....there really should be a couple different sizes of mandrel....roughly .0005 apart for different die sizers.....you may wish to lightly polish the sizing button on your sizing die to get a slightly better fit on the mandrel...the tool works a bit better when the case slips with some force on the mandrel.

Vapodog,

It’s this one - http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=161996
You buy the tool and the mandrels separately. I bought a 6mm mandrel and I’m using a .243, so it should be OK.
There is certainly no force to slide the neck over the mandrel and I wouldn’t like to polish the die (Lee Collet) that much in case I start shaving the bullets as they go in.

Kev.

IIRC the mandrel can be made by altering a 1/2-13 set screw....you need to turn and polish the pilot diameter to about .001 larger than the one you have.....They don't have to be heat treated.

Double check the thread size if you do this as it's been a long time since I've had one in my hands.

quote:

...mandrel can be made by altering a 1/2-13 set screw....

Good idea! I'll have the local machine shop knock one up
Cheers Vapodog.
Kev.