I just bought a .450 Marlin and it is my first straight walled case rifle. I have a question about expanding the neck. How far do I run this into the die? The instructions are kind of vague. Do I just expand the very top so the bullet will rest in it, or do I run it completely into the the expander in the die? In other words do I push the case in to were it barely contacts the expander part of the die or is the expander made to run completly into the case? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

You should just expand the mouth of the case enough (or enough plus a bit) to allow the expander to start the bullet
into the case. Too little and the case(s) will be crushed and too much and you over work the brass, which is better than
ruined brass.

If you are familiar with loading handgun cases [357 44 mag.etc] then we have a reference.
Flare the case mouth just enough to be able to set a bullet in the flare. If it won't go, more is needed.

The only brand of dies I use is Lee, so I'm not familiar with the others. I've found that on the case mouth beller in Lee dies, the beller not only bells the case mouth, it also expands the case for the length of the bullet. Personally, I don't care for this. I believe it relaxes the tension of the grip on the bullet. I hand flare my .45-70 cases by twisting a large center punch into the case mouth. I get the flare I need to start the bulllet but don't loose the grip in the case after resizing.

Neverflinch,

Are you shooting jacketed or cast?

If jacketed, you just need to get the brass opened enough that the bullet seats without "crunching" your casing.

If, on the other hand, you are shooting cast you need to have the brass opened enough that it doesn't distort the "boolit" (as I call cast bullets) as it is being seated.

If the case is sized several thousandths under boolit diameter, and you force a boolit into the case (even with the proper bell on the case mouth), you may damage the boolit (resize it down below optimum diameter) and create a problem for yourself.

Just something else to think about.

quote:

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If, on the other hand, you are shooting cast you need to have the brass opened enough that it doesn't distort the "boolit" (as I call cast bullets) as it is being seated.

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I see the term "boolit" alot, can you explain where that came from?

You might find a Lyman M Die is useful.

Lyman M Die

1) The first step expands the inside of the case neck to just under bullet diameter for precise case neck tension in the finished reload. (See Illus. A.)

2) The second step expands the case mouth to bullet diameter or slightly over. This allows the jacketed or cast bullet to be started perfectly centered in the case mouth and properly aligned with the axis of the case neck. (See Illus. B.)

NOTE: By adjusting the neck expanding plug slightly deeper, Step 2 also provides a slight flaring of the case mouth for reloaders using cast bullets. (See Illus. C.)

41 Redhawk,first time I saw the word 'boolit'it was sent to me in a link.
http://cast_boolits.aimoo.com/
Now I see it all over the place.It really doesn't bother me.
One word that does is 'Impact', all the talking heads use it in their lamebrained news reports.

As jackfish has illustrated, you don't really "expand the neck" of a straight-walled case. It really has no neck exactly. What you do is to "bell" the mouth of the case so the bullet can be started into the mouth of the case without touching the edges of the case mouth, then seated without shaving any lead off (lead bullet) or collapsing the case mouth (jacketed bullet). If you have previously expanded the inside of the case to within a couple thousandths of an inch of full bullet diameter before belling and seating the bullet, it makes it easier to seat the bullet.

However, in some cartridge cases no expansion is needed before belling & seating. This is determined by how drastically your sizing die squeezes the case walls in when you size them!

I used to load .450 Alaskan ammo this way. With a case full of powder for the bullet to compress a little as it was seated, the tension of the unexpanded case mouth positively kept the bullet from coming back out under the very substantial recoil of that round. This way, I was able to make uncrimped reloads work when I was using bullets that had no crimp groove, or which had a crimping groove in the wrong place for the O/A loaded cartridge length I needed in the Win. M71 action. And the bullets never moved, in or out, even though they were NOT crimped. I tested this by leaving two rounds in the magazine while firing ten shots. The bullets in these two rounds did not budge either direction.

I used a Lyman "M" die for this with a .45 ACP expander, which belled the case mouth the required amount, but which left the inside of the case no larger than 0.451" for the .458" bullet.

Good luck.