Lee FCD to Put a Cannelure in a 223 Case Neck

[jimkim]

Do y'all think it would be possible to modify a Lee FCD to put a cannelure? I'm thinking if I made a steel mandril to support the neck, I could add one to my 223 necks.

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[Gtrubicon]

Why not use the lee fcd as intended, it will firmly crimp non cannelured bullets very well.

[megasupermagnum]

Why would you want a cannelure on a case neck? The collet crimp die does a phenomenal job of crimping by itself. If for some other purpose, I would start with a Lee neck sizing die, which has the mandrel built right in. I'm not sure how you would machine the inside of the collet though.

[jmorris]

To what end?

I am not saying to not distort your brass for whatever reason you have but just wondering why you would want to do so?

What is the problem you are trying to address?

I am sure everyone here knows that lead is softer than brass so any amount of crimp you put on a bullet without a cannelure, compresses the lead, with the brass case, then the case springs back, while the bullet remains “under”.

From my experience also makes its way from the case to the target with less accuracy as well.

[jimkim]

I want to put a cannelure in the neck just above the shoulder. This is before seating the bullet. The bullet will be seated and hopefully the cannelure will prevent any setback, without deforming the bullet.

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[1hole]

Jim, it took a bit of thinking it through but I believe your ingenious concept is sound.

If you shorten the bottom of the crimping sleeve enough to put the top end exactly where you want the new cannalure to be AND if you have enough slack in the diameter of your mandrel to allow the internal bulging it should work well. BUT - you'd likely have to repeat it every time you FL size/expand those cases.

If you do it let us know how it works out!

[Gewehr-Guy]

I wanted to do something similar with some 30-06 cases to make some gallery loads, and sized them down in a 270 die, then used a 30 cal. NOE neck expander to seat a round ball. It worked, but necks were not very coencentric.

[azjohn]

How about a collet neck sizing die?

[44magLeo]

On your possible set back, the sizer/expander die should make the neck tension more than adequate to prevent set back under most conditions.
If you experience set back then I might try polishing the expander ball a bit small, 6this will provide more neck tension.
I would try Lee's FDC. Try with a light crimp, then add more till you don't get the set back.
Much easier than trying to make a cannelure to a case neck.
Someone make a tool for adding a cannelure to bullets. I might try that before I tried to rebuild a die.
Leo

[rancher1913]

why not put a cannelure on the boolit at your crimp point

[jmorris]

I want to put a cannelure in the neck just above the shoulder. This is before seating the bullet. The bullet will be seated and hopefully the cannelure will prevent any setback, without deforming the bullet.

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Is you bullet not going to be below the shoulder at all?

If the seating depth had the base below the cannelure your only going to make things worse than just relying on neck tension alone.

[megasupermagnum]

Ok, I understand now. Yes, the Lee collet crimp die could be modified to work if you have a lathe. You would need to pop out the collet, and trim the bottom to the level you want. You then may, or may not need to trim the top to make the band narrower. That said, I don't see this working well. The neck on a 223 remington is already incredibly short, and I can only imagine this is going to make the neck runout much larger. I don't think it will work well.

[jimkim]

Jim, it took a bit of thinking it through but I believe your ingenious concept is sound.

If you shorten the bottom of the crimping sleeve enough to put the top end exactly where you want the new cannalure to be AND if you have enough slack in the diameter of your mandrel to allow the internal bulging it should work well. BUT - you'd likely have to repeat it every time you FL size/expand those cases.

If you do it let us know how it works out!

Thanks.

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[jetinteriorguy]

Lee makes a replacement mandrel for the Neck sizing collet die for .223 which makes for a very tight fitting neck. I have one and tried it out, you can definitely feel the difference when seating the bullet. I don’t use it since I felt it might cause the shoulder to collapse. I think if you flared the neck, seated, and then used the crimp die to remove the flare it would work good. But I’ve shot thousands of rounds without cannelured bullets using the standard anvil with absolutely no problem so I don’t bother with it since it introduces two more uneccesary steps in my process.