What sizing plug do I need?.

[PAT303]

I want to buy one of NOE's sizing plugs for my 303's and one for my 6.5 swede,the 303's all take .315 dia boolits,the swede .270,allowing for spring back what size plugs do I buy?. Pat

[dondiego]

Are you referring to neck expansion plugs? I am unfamiliar with a sizing plug.

[44man]

I am also confused. Expander or boolit size die????

[44man]

The Swed 6.5 is even worse. The bullet is .264 and cast a little larger so where does .270 come from?

[runfiverun]

270 would be his boolit size.
I'm pretty sure Pat measured his throats and not his barrel.

anyway I'd get a 314 for the 303 and a 269 for the 270 boolits.
this will give you about .002 neck tension, the option of using a smaller boolit, and will account for your brass loosing some of it's spring-back as it gets used.

[Yodogsandman]

There's the problem, not enough variety of plug sizes are available. The custom route is the only option.

http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_info.php?cPath=88&products_id=1513

http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_info.php?products_id=1505

[44man]

Not .270 in a 6.5. Too large, increased pressure and wipe out of GG's. Too large is as bad as too small.

[Cowboy_Dan]

I spoke with a technician at NOE before ordering mine. He suggested that you go .001 over boolit diameter in their nominal sizes. So a .315 boolit would call for a .316 expander. This is if you are referring to their expander plugs for the Lee universal expander die. Probably would work the same way with their powder through plugs as well.

[runfiverun]

Not .270 in a 6.5. Too large, increased pressure and wipe out of GG's. Too large is as bad as too small.

too large is as bad as too small and I would rather use the barrel diameter and boolit design to make things work too.
and filling the chambers diameter with brass is the best option of course [to me anyway]


but that was how I read the question.

[44man]

The OP's question is still a question as to what he is looking for.

[PAT303]

Sorry I should have been clearer.I neck size all my cases and then flare so I can seat the boolits,NOE has neck expander plugs that replace the tapered plug in the Lee flare die.With my rifles I size to throat dia,44man the reason I shoot .270 boolits in my 6.5,the trouble is I can't get a constant neck size just by sizing,hense the expander plugs,I would like about .001 neck tension so using my 303's as an example I shoot .315 dia boolits in all of them so do I get a .315 expander that should give enough tension allowing for the brass springing back or should I go .316?,I think going the other way to .314 will simply size my boolits to .314 or worse .313 which defeats the purpose.I'd like to hear from people who use them and their experience,sorry about the crappy original post. Pat

[gloob]

If your cases are small enough to need expanding I would go 315. If your cases don't need any expansion then I would use just a flare die. Or even the ball from my 308 to kiss the case mouths. A 314 is not going to be the best in either case, IMO.

If you are shooting plain base soft alloy you might even try 316. You will surely reduce your maximum potential neck tension. Out of a bolt rifle and with cast bullets that is sometimes a good strategy anyway. Esp if you can load into the lands.

[44man]

It sounds like the dies are off. I use Hornady dies for the 6.5 and they are perfect for .264".
Necks should be sized so there is very little drag on the expander but it should do some work. Just not hard to pull out because that can bend shoulders.
I have one bad size die, Lyman, doesn't size enough and the expander or a .460 " boolit will fall in.
After a pound fit measurement it barely holds a .464" boolit.

[gloob]

With noe/Lyman style expanders you don't need to worry about stretching the cases. You could open them up too a whole new caliber with no problem.

[Litl Red 3991]

With noe/Lyman style expanders you don't need to worry about stretching the cases. You could open them up too a whole new caliber with no problem.

???

Expanding plugs are there to stretch cases or at least to insure they're large enough? And no magic expander can expand cases without splitting them when they've been resized too small, for brass that's too hard from the factory or our using over and over again.

What do "stretched cases" look like, btw?

[gloob]

I have expanded many 243 cases to 7mm-08 and I have never broken or stretched one, yet. Seat a bullet and fire. Saves time and components over fire-forming.

When pulling a ball thru an overly tight neck, it grabs and distorts the case, sometimes enough to prevent chambering. This is because the shoulder is pulled out. Pushing an expander from the top down won't do that. It won't grab to begin with, and it would crush the case, not stretch it, if it did.

If you can use a push thru expander to go up a caliber, there's no way your sizing die is going to be too tight for it, for the right caliber. I have a die that is too tight, and this is my experience. As 44man says, this causes a problem with a regular expander. With a lyman/noe, there's no issue and I don't even use neck lube.

[44man]

I used to get bad run out and Weatherby brass with the rounded shoulder was the worst. I tracked it to the pull through expander bending shoulders. I sent the dies with fired brass to have the neck area lapped for minimum sizing and my rifles went down to 1/2" or less at 100.
It was done so I still had neck tension so it worked. I could feel the expander work but no longer had to use so much pressure to withdraw them even though lubed.
Dies vary and some size too much and some don't size enough. The expander must still do some expanding or it is useless.

[gloob]

The expander must still do some expanding or it is useless.
A lot of the time, the expander is useless. My 223 die is so loose, the expander doesn't do anything more than let me know which cases have tension and which ones I have to toss. My 45 die is the same. It's not uncommon for a die to be a "minimum" sizing die right out of the box as part of the normal allowable range from the factory. In this case, a rifle expander isn't really doing anything overly useful, and a pistol expander is just adding a case mouth flare.