Should I be FL resizing new brass or neck sizing, or neither. I have just been running the expander ball through the mouth, cause they are often dented. Then I heard someone say that I should remove the expander ball completely cause it causes run out.

These have not been shot I gather . FL resize load and shoot them in your Rifle then neck size

and trim too length if necessary . I shoot mine Neck size trim and turn the out side of my necks

uniformly just once on turning the necks . Then simply neck size just bumping the shoulder back .

If one has an X Die they don't grow after the initial trimming which is under case length to

begin with .

You will be just neck sizing even if you set your die to FL size because the new brass is so much smaller that the FL die will not size the case body or contact the shoulder.

So just worry about getting all the dents out of the neck for the first firing and after that, like Doc say, just neck size until your case get a crush fit, then either Partial FL size or FL size.

Thanks. I had a feeling that when I would FL size my new brass it wasn't actually pushing the shoulder back cause it was easier to pull the press handle down than it was with once fired brass. I'll continue on like I have been doing and just removing dents at the mouths of the cases.

Except for one cartridge case, the only thing I ever do to new brass is to chamfer the mouth and I don't always do that.

I doubt time is that much of a factor. FLS new brass.

As one of the victims of the infamous Lapua outsourcing debacle, after weighing, I run all my new brass through the FL sizer as a matter of course. It's a lot easier to do that than to measure everything to check for mistakes. I have not found a bad (sizewise) case for years, but it takes hardly any time to do this and it beasts finding a badly sized one the hard way.

Mostly I am doing that for BR brass, but I have got in the habit of doing it for ALL new brass.

I learned this one the hard way. I bought 100 new brass and neck sized and trimmed. 16 out of the 100 rounds made would not chamber because the shoulder was a little too long. Had to pull the bullets and re-size FL. Then they worked fine. This was winchester brand in .308win. Full length size first time around!!!

Wow..never had that problem with new brass but maybe you have a fairly tight chamber? Anyhow I simply plunge new brass over a lyman m die or the elipitical expander of a Hornady die.....do an inside chamfer....and load em up.
Once they are fired I pay more attention to things and get them uniformed. In general I find pretty good runnout on most brands of new brass and decent accuracy too.

Just as a side note here: Many of the brass manufactures state that their new brass should be FL sized before loading.

I FL resize new brass and do all the match type prep work before loading because the virgin brass is softer and easier to work. I lube the necks but don't even know if that is truly necessary with the virgin brass. There is little resistance because it is on the small end of the tolerance scale and also because it is soft. The biggest issue I find with new brass is so much of it is below the recommended "trim To" length; sometimes way below. I sort it into groups and choose the length that I am making as my new minimum until they get fired and reloaded a time or two and hit specs. The way undersized are trimmmed to a shorter yet length and used for other shooting purposes than the keepers - load testing etc.

ETA: Always resize the virgin brass for consistant neck tension regardless of how nice it looks.

FL resizing and neck triming and such is a waste of time until the brass is fire formed in your rifle. Why trim to a uniform length before fire forming when you have to redo it after fire forming??
Bump the resizer ball thru the neck, chamfer the neck, load it and shoot it. THEN, trim to a uniform lenght, sort by weight, and any and all of the prep work you choose to do.

I always at least neck size. There are just too many slight variables in manuf. brass to not at least size & deburr, sometimes trimming is required.

I've been neck-sizing, measuring and then trimming, if necessary.

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:
I always at least neck size. There are just too many slight variables in manuf. brass to not at least size & deburr, sometimes trimming is required.

The only way to get rid of many of the size variables is to fire the case. If the case starts out under size more than the sizer die, and they usually are, all that effort is wasted.

I always inspect and resize new brass. It seems like none of the case mouths are round.