I'm having a problem re-sizing some 06 cases purchased from a member here. This in no way refers to the gentleman I traded with, but was told it was once-fired and probably from a machine gun. I believe that is irrelevant to the problem, but that is the history of the brass, and as this person was in the military and picked it up himself.
Now to the actual problem:
First step was de-prime, then ss tumbled with citric acid (1/2 teaspoon in about 5 quarts of water with 1 teaspoon Armorall premium wash and wax. So far, so good. 250 cases with 10 lbs pins and ran for 1 1/2 hrs. Rinsed and dried in the sun.
I used the old RCBS case lube in the green and white tube. (I have a bunch of this stuff, and want to use it up before switching)
To lube the inside of the necks, I used graphite mixed with shot and dipped the necks three or four times in an old pill bottle.
I then ran them through an RCBS full length sizer with the expander ball in place and the die adjusted correctly. (To the best of my ability)
My runout gage was being used for something else when I sized these, bt when I started checking them, the necks varied from one to seven thousanths out of concentricity.
I thought maybe something was wrong with the die, so switched to another die, also RCBS. It did the same thing. At that point, I borrowed a friend's bonanza die thinking I would try something a bit different. It didn't change anything, so called RCBS. They sent me a new expander ball, stem, and the threaded nut that holds the stem in the die. The old one in the first die was off center, but the new one wasn't. It still didn't change anything.
next step was to change lubes for the neck. We keep coconut oil in the house for other purposes, so tried that on the inside of the neck with a nylon brush. That made the expander ball go through a little easier, but with the same results of out of round. Not only are they out of concentricity, but are angled to the side. I have also tried rotating the case three or for times, sizing them as I go, but still, no change.
Next step was to anneal the neck and shoulder area. This didn't make any difference, either.
Next step was to remove the expander ball and decapping rod and sized without expanding back to size. This time, cases came out within 1/2 to one thou max, but were still under-sized.
at this point, I made a hardened steel pin with a pilot that would pick up the under-sized neck and hold the case concentric and piloted while bringing it back up to proper size. This helped, as the cases now were running from zero to two thou out on about two- thirds of the cases, but some were back out three or four thou.
This has been frustrating, to say the least. I am now in the middle of building an annealing machine, as this seemed to help some, even though it didn't completely cure the problem.
I have been considering a neck sizing die from Wilson, but can't do that for my wife's Garand anyway. A lee collet die would probably make them straight, but still would not be acceptable because of the Garand.
If anyone has any ideas, I would sure like to hear them. I have more than 750 of these things to try to fix, and am starting to get frustrated. By the way, I've been reloading for a long time and have never had this happen before.