how important is this process? how many of you guys do this?

Neck turning is necessary in 3 of my guns because they have tight necked custom chambers. IMO, neck turning is beneficial in the one caliber for which I use a bushing sizer die.

In factory chambers with a lot of neck clearance around your loaded round necks, neck turning will give minimal, if not undetectable results. The minimal results will come from a more consistant neck thickness and possibly a more consistant bullet release from the more consistant neck thickness.

......and unless you have the tools to measure the neck walls you don't really know how much, if any shaving needs to be done. You can easily do more harm than good with a neck turner- especially the hand held version.

Not important for a factory rifle. In fact it may cause more problems than it solves. I do it.

What is your goal for neck turning? And what weapon will you be neck turning the brass for?

If you intend to make short ones out of long ones, seriously neck down or wildcat it becomes a must. The only other time I needed it was with a tight necked chamber in a 22PPC. roger

i was going to do it for .308 brass shooting it out of an FN PBR but with an ER Shaw bull barrel. LC Match the same stuff used for the M118LR

Basically there are at least three major reasons for neck-turning.

1) To make neck thickness more uniform all the way around...as a help for centering the bullet in the chamber/throat prior to firing, and MAYBE to make neck tension more uniform.

2) To reduce loaded round neck diameter to where it will fit correctly in a "tight-neck" chamber.

3) To reduce loaded-round neck diameter to fit into a standard chamber when you have made brass for your gun from some other case entirely...an exaggerated example being when making .243 brass from .30-06 empties.


There are a number of neck turners on the market. Hand turning is probably the most common way used by leading benchrest shooters.

For a really good tool set-up, go to benchrest central.com and then do a search for the "Pumpkin". It is the Rolls Royce, but it definitely is not cheap! Lathe-turning necks is also a very good method, but not practical for most handloaders.

BTW, neck-turning is like anything else in shooting. It is a learned and developed skill, mastered only by doing it (and by using tools which are up to the precision you want/need).

Incidentally, unless you have a good "ball mic" (tubing mic) or a similar measuring device capable of measuring to the precision level you want, you won't be able to do it at that level no matter what else you have.

For most factory chambered hunting rifles, I usually just set my neck turner so it will take off the slightest possible amount of brass from about 50% of the surface of the neck...those areas it cuts being the high spots where the neck is thickest. That pretty well "uniforms" the brass thickness, which is about all most folks need for hunting rounds.

And I only do that because it makes me feel good. As far as detectable accuracy improvements in factory chambered hunting rifles, it would be hard to proove it really helps anything enough to make or break a shot at an animal.

Used to neck turn for factory rifles. It didn't hurt accuracy and it helped concentricity in that the neck wasn't as "squeezed down" by the die and the expander went through with less drag and didn't pull the neck off alignment.
THEN ALONG CAME THE LEE COLLET DIE.
I love these buggers. Pushes the neck against a round collet leaving a perfect cirle that is perfectly centered in the casing. No runnout problems....consistant neck tension, and no cleaning lube out of the neck after resizing.
Combine it with a redding body die and your neck turning tools will start gathering dust real fast.

quote:

Originally posted by kraky:
Used to neck turn for factory rifles. It didn't hurt accuracy and it helped concentricity in that the neck wasn't as "squeezed down" by the die and the expander went through with less drag and didn't pull the neck off alignment.
THEN ALONG CAME THE LEE COLLET DIE.
I love these buggers. Pushes the neck against a round collet leaving a perfect cirle that is perfectly centered in the casing. No runnout problems....consistant neck tension, and no cleaning lube out of the neck after resizing.
Combine it with a redding body die and your neck turning tools will start gathering dust real fast.

x2 (except for the gathering dust part because of my tight necked guns)

I too am a neck turner.
I think Alberta Canuck's reply covers the subject quite well as I see it.

muck

Alberta Canuck made a lot of good points. I neck turn for my 30BR because I have to make my brass for and the chamber is of course very tight. I would not waste my time going through all that for a hunting rifle unless I had a custom barrel put on which I am currently doing with my old faithful 7mm08. For that one I have 500 nice perfect Rem brass waiting for the new custom chamber. Before the rifle shot perfect for 30 years without neck turning.
You will also find that after you get everything that you need to be a good neck turner you could buy yourself a new rifle.

Since you are using a 308 you could just get Lapua or Norma brass which have a good reputation for consistent wall thickness. The cheaper brass is very inconsistent.

Have fun with your choice.

Everybody needs to do some neck turning.
Get one of the little Forster gizzies and have a go at it. You just want to clean up the necks. Oh, say about 75% of the neck will be turned off. Set it for one case and use the same setting for them all. You want consistancy. You don't have to get involved in a lot of measuring nor do you need to sell the farm for more expensive equipment.
Start out with fire formed brass. Neck turn about 10 or so, then trim and reload them using your best technique. Then take 10 cases from the same lot but not neck turned and trim and reload them using your best technique.
Then shoot 'em up. It'd be better if you could find a neutral person to shoot them but I'm sure you wouldn't cheat.
You may find a slight improvement in the ones with the turned neck from the more consistant bullet pull but it will probably be slight. So the question is, is it worth it to you in your shooting situation to do it??
When I was shooting factory rifle matches I would shoot neck turned brass, hunting, with the same rifle, I wouldn't.

quote:

Originally posted by Nick321:
how important is this process? how many of you guys do this?

Unless one has a "tight chambered" neck it's a waste of time.

Further it might help but only if your gun is already shooting in the range of 1/2 MOA

For everyone else....it's a joke!

I used to do the neck turning thing for a 22-250 but found that it didn't seem to have any impact on accuracy so it has just gone to the sidelines.

quote:

Originally posted by kraky:
Used to neck turn for factory rifles. It didn't hurt accuracy and it helped concentricity in that the neck wasn't as "squeezed down" by the die and the expander went through with less drag and didn't pull the neck off alignment.
THEN ALONG CAME THE LEE COLLET DIE.
I love these buggers. Pushes the neck against a round collet leaving a perfect cirle that is perfectly centered in the casing. No runnout problems....consistant neck tension, and no cleaning lube out of the neck after resizing.
Combine it with a redding body die and your neck turning tools will start gathering dust real fast.

Yep! Now I've gotta bunch of "S" bushing neck dies that I need to sell.