I bought a Forrester outside neck turner and the pilot will not fit into the case necks. I have new .300WSM brass that was sized in an RCBS full length sizing die. The pilot measures .308 and will fit into other .30 cal brass that has not ben resized. This is the hand held neckturner. Is it to be used after the case has been fired and before it is resized or should I have the pilot reground a bit smaller?

One way is to mike your expander than put your pilot in a drill press or lath if you have one and stone it till it is just a scooch under the expander. Or you might want to buy the right expander.Also if whatever expander is a little tight use a little Bardahl to lube the pilot. It should be alright to use that pilot on after fired cases if the fit isn't too great. It should not be much greater than.002" clearance. There are other tecniques but try these first. roger

Not sure what you are up against. I have a K&M and a sinclair turner and both require the case mouth to be opened up beyond normal sizing. I have a pilot that will do this. But, I have also just used once fired brass and spun them on the cutters with no problems. I would think the case mouth opening on resized brass would be about .305 so I can't see how your .308 pilot could work on resized brass.
FWIW--I use a drill to spin the brass on the cutter mandrel and lube the mandrel with imperial sizing wax. I would think the instructions might tell you what you need to do to prep the brass for your forester prior to cutting. I buy rem 300 wby brass for my 2 wby's. Out of the box the rem brass is pure junk. But once the necks are turned (and they can be very lopsided) they become virtual match grade brass and resize like butter in my forester dies with .000" runnout of preloaded brass.

Got the same problem with my 300RUM and sinclair neck turner. Have to use the expander die they sell.

Actually the expander expands too much. I have to run them thru a neck sizer to get them to hold the bullets right.

I don't do a lot of neck turning, but it seems to me that a fired case will have expanded to fit the chamber and the outside will be uniform and all the irregularities will have been pushed to the inside of the neck. Therefore, outside neck turning will be less effective.

But, on a resized case the inside will be made more uniform and all the irregularities will have been pushed to the outside where turning will be most effective.

I have a Lyman turner and the mandrel fits in the resized neck. If I were you, I would work on getting the mandrel to fit in a resized neck. JMHO


Without guns we are subjects, with guns we are citizens

You really need to use the expander first, then neck turn, then size. If you resize first you have squeezed all the irregularities to the INSIDE of the neck, where your outside neck turner will not reach.

It sounds like this is your first time turning necks, so you might want to check out precision shootings reloading guide. Fred Sinclair does a great job of explaining when and how to neck turn.

Good luck.

Doug Koenig

I always resize my brass first, then run them through the sizing mandrel. You want the inside of your case neck smooth, this way it moves the imperfection's to the outside of the neck and be turned away.
Is this a custom gun? If not, then you want to take as little off the neck as possible. I have taken off to much and the neck would not seal the chamber.
A good book to get and read is Handloading for Competition by Glen D. Zediker.

www.zediker.com
Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

The neck expander mandrel should be .001" larger than the neck turning mandrel. If the latter is .308" than the former should be .309"

The theory is that brass springs back after expanding.

If you don't expand your neck to match the neck turning mandrel, then you will quickly become a very vulgar person and your fellow cohabbitants will ostracize you.

My expaneder button measures .001 larger that the pilot still the pilot will not go into the case neck as far as it should with out undue force.

What kind of brass are you using? Are you using a lube when you run your brass through the sizing mandrel? I use Imperial dry neck lube to size with the mandrel and turn the necks.

Sinclair or K&M sell a separte expander mandrel and die that is to be used after resizing that will allow it to fit the neck turner mandrel.

You know this post got me thinking. I don't like all that neck working I do with the FL sizer, then expander, then neck turning, then neck sizing. So I called Sinclair this morning. He agreed what I am doing is normal. I suggested I take my .306 neck turning mandel and turn down to .305". He said I could do that. Sinclair no longer warranties it, but I could do that. So now all I would have to do is run thru a FL sizer, then neck turn, and shoot.

That is pretty much what I did. Put the pilot in a drill and spun it while holding some 600 grit emery paper on it then used J&B polishing compound on it. I kept trying it on the brass until I got it to fit just right.