Hi--went out to shoot my sako 222
When I went to reload the cases I noticed that most of the cases were too tight to seat a bullet before sizing
The neck have been turned to 11 th thick
I was testing a new load using a 40 gr bullet
and starting load of 4198
Any ideas ??

Are you saying you shot the cartridges and BEFORE you did anything to the cases you found the necks were too tight to seat a bullet in?

I can't see how that could happen.

I own and shoot a SAKO Riihimaki in .222 Remington. I have never seen your problem.
Are you sure your bullets are .223/4 and not 6mm?
If you are resizing the brass make sure you have the correct expander ball in the FL Die.

Hi Yes been using the cases for a while
I was cleaning the inside of the necks
with a brush and noticed some seemed
to be tighter than others
tried a bullet in some and they slipped in
nicely and others not at all
Ideas??
Sydney

Why did you turn the necks if your rifle has a factory chamber?

Do you know the neck diameter of your chamber?

Tight neck rifles have the size on the outside of the barrel.

Guns without any mention of the chamber neck diameter havrcstandard chambers, that do not require neck turning.

Hi--I never saw any reason not to lightly
turn the outside of the necks just enough to clean up the wall thickness ??
in talking to others I think my loads might be too light using the 40 gr bullet
the necks are not expanding properly and
also the necks and shoulders are smoked
These cases worked fine using 53 gr bullets
Thanks for the replies Sydney

Yes, it sounds like your necks are not expanding enough to seal the chamber. Try a hotter load and/or anneal the necks.

Hip

We have rifles with tight necks.

No matter how hard your load is, the bullet will not drop into a fired case.

That the way they are designed.

Turning necks for chambers that do not require it is a waste of time and effort - some even say it might aggravate the accuracy.

I suspect that the necks of some of your cases may be on the hard side. If so, they will exhibit significant springback after firing. If the springback is great enough, then a bullet will not re-enter the fired case neck. This has NOTHING to do with whether the case necks are too thick, but rather too hard. If there was no notable resistance to closing the bolt on the loaded cartridge then it is certainly not an instance of too-thick case necks.

I've experienced the same thing in reverse with some .300 Blackout brass that was too hard in the neck. After running them through the sizing die the necks would spring back large enough that they would not retain a bullet. Cases with softer necks exhibited ample neck tension when sized in this same die. Case necks were of the same thickness.

As has been mentioned, annealing the case necks should solve this problem, but if you are not familiar with the annealing process be sure to read up extensively on how to do it since over-annealing or annealing too far down on the case can ruin it.