I'm beginning to reload for my Taylor quite a bit now, and have heard opinions either way. I will be using new brass for my next trip to Africa , but am wondering which way would keep the brass useable longer for practice? All are fired from the same gun, so no issues there. Input and opinions are all welcome and valued.
Cheers
Rick

If they will freely go in and out of the chamber, then you can neck size. But often they won't, even from the same chamber.
Obviously for hunting you aren't concerned with case life, but your own, as well as your hard earned $Ks that you are spending to go.
I would use only new brass for hunting and what I said above for practice; they still need to be reliable.
An age old question for sure.

It all depends on how your brass eventually becomes unusable. Usually one reuses cases until there is some visible or physical sign that the case is at or past its use by date, figuratively speaking that is.

If the primer pockets loosen to where primers are in danger of leaking gas or falling out and no other signs of case failure then that is the life of the case. You can use nail polish or glue to keep your primers in the pocket if you really wanted to keep using your cases but loose primers usually indicate over stressed case heads and end of life.
If you see signs of incipient case head separation, a bright ring and or fine crack developing just forward of the solid web of the case head, then again end of life of your case. Here try partially resizing or neck sizing only earlier in the piece to minimise headspace (with belted or rimless cases having a shoulder).
If you get cracks on the shoulder or neck area and no other issues such as the first two, then you should regularly anneal your cases earlier in use which will prevent the cracking and prolong case life.

So at the end of the day it depends on how your cases wear out that determines the choices you have to prolong case life.

I full length resize my 416 Taylor cases as a matter of course.

But then I don't shoot it enough to worry about wearing them out and if I would 458WM brass is not hard to come by.

He is right.
Neck sizing is not going to stop the myriad ways cases get old anyway. Cracked necks, loose primers, thin webs; you will get those anyway.
I find it is not worth the effort and potential risk of hard chambering; just FL size, shoot, drive on. No need to create drama for really, no reason.

If you primarily want longer case life, anneal the necks/shoulders every 3 or 4 loads.

The 416 Taylor is a belted cartridge and there is a LOT of info on case life of belted cases. I have never owned a belted case rifle. So I have no experience reloading such cases.

IIRC, 7mm rem mag gives 5 or 6 reloads with neck sizing. I am not sure annealing will help much with belted cases.

When reloading for the 416 Rigby, I neck sized and annealed after 4 firings.

For the 470 NE I anneal after 2 or 3 firing but case life was only 5 shots with Norma brass, which is reputed to be soft.

As has been discussed ad infinitum here, you treat belted cases as standard bottlenecks and ignore the belts. That way they last as long as any others. It is when you ignore that advice and use the belt that you introduce short case life. Why? Because SAAMI specs allow possitively HUGE tolerances between min brass and max chamber head to belt lengths.

Full length sizing is okay, depending on how you define full length sizing.

If you simply snug your FL die down against the shell holder you will be doing MAXIMUM sizing, which may be excessive, depending on how well your die is matched to your chamber. Instead, screw the die only as far into the press as is required to allow the sized case to easily re-enter the chamber. With some die/rifle combinations this may very well be hard against the shell holder, but with many others, less sizing is desirable and adequate for fool-proof chambering.

Thanks fellas! Great imput!!
Cheers
Rick

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:
Full length sizing is okay, depending on how you define full length sizing.

If you simply snug your FL die down against the shell holder you will be doing MAXIMUM sizing, which may be excessive, depending on how well your die is matched to your chamber. Instead, screw the die only as far into the press as is required to allow the sized case to easily re-enter the chamber. With some die/rifle combinations this may very well be hard against the shell holder, but with many others, less sizing is desirable and adequate for fool-proof chambering.

That is what I call partial sizing. Instead of adjusting dies to partial size I use washers between the die and press of different thicknesses out of aluminum, steel, plastic and cardboard.
It has worked great for years as I have reloaded .30-06 case types to 25 times and magnum cases over 15 times usually only have to be discarded due to loose primer pockets.

Hip

My 416 Taylor cases were made from virgin WW 458 brass and sized until the bolt would close with just a little resistance with the firing pin locked back. That's where the die setting is today.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
As has been discussed ad infinitum here, you treat belted cases as standard bottlenecks and ignore the belts. That way they last as long as any others. It is when you ignore that advice and use the belt that you introduce short case life. Why? Because SAAMI specs allow possitively HUGE tolerances between min brass and max chamber head to belt lengths.

This^^^^^^^^

.

quote:

Originally posted by Johnly:
My 416 Taylor cases were made from virgin WW 458 brass and sized until the bolt would close with just a little resistance with the firing pin locked back. That's where the die setting is today.

And this^^^^^


.

For any hunting ammo, especially in a big bore, utter reliability of feeding and extraction is far more important than ultimate accuracy or case life. Full length resize, use a good crimp (so bullets cannot move in the case - corrigated roads, plus Landcruiser will shake any thing loose, and make sure all the rounds you take with you feed through the action easily.

If you spending several thousand dollars on going big game hunting, especially dangerous game, saving a few dollars on cases doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The Chatfield Taylors are all on the belted .338 case, and a great wildcat it was and still is...Use new brass either 338 or 458, I prefer necking .338 up to 416 usually to .375 then to 458, but can be done either way..A belted case is designed to hearspace on the belt and that's what it will do shooting new brass, then I would set the neck size to to size to the shoulder junction or a tad less..I do this by blackening the case with a match and resizing it half way or there abouts (not critical at this point) then try it in the rifle looking for just a light tad of tightness, if not then take several turns on the die and go a bit more in fit to the chamber. continue until it will feed freely with just a tad of snugness..cases willlast longer this way, and after a number of firings you may have to repeat the original process...

Full length resizing work hardens brass and you get only 4 or 5 loadings, but in the real world that's a lot of loadings, and you may just opt for the purchase of another 100 new cases and toss the old ones out..Thats mostly what I do, and I full length resize every loading..I have never had a problem with using reloads to hunt except one time with a double rifle and it was a camp fix..

Its an option, and depends on how much one actually shoots and hunts, and what he is hunting..I use handloads to shoot deer and elk and many times for PG in Africa, but always new brass on DG..Just my two bits.

quote:

Full length sizing is okay, depending on how you define full length sizing. If you simply snug your FL die down against the shell holder you will be doing MAXIMUM sizing, which may be excessive, depending on how well your die is matched to your chamber.

I would think the reloader would be more familiar with his surroundings. He should know how to verify his dies. If the dies are as iffy as reloaders believe I would sort my dies by size. I only have one set of Redding competition shell holders 'only' because the dealer at the gun show wanted $5.00 for the set.

I have never used the #4 set but I have the set JIC what I have been doing all of my reloading life quits working.

F. Guffey