Interesting article on neck tension

[subsonic]

http://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/reloading/neck-tension-not-just-bushing-size/

Yes, I know it's not specifically talking about handguns, but brass is brass and cartridges are cartridges to some degree.

Do y'all see why I like some lead in the case??!!:mrgreen:

[44man]

Good article! I always turned necks for rifles and single shots but just barely and not all the way around, leaving a spot untouched. The idea was to just even out the thickness. I never had to fit to a precision chamber for BR. That is enough to center bullets better. Turning too much from brass is not a good idea with regular hunting rifles.
The article is spot on and is why you never heard me say anything about sizing or expanding in thousandths of an inch, even for revolvers (Never turn revolver brass!)
It is more feel and appearance and since I can measure boolit seating pressure, I see the importance.
The revolver is where uneven tension rears it's ugly head. I found the problem with jacketed bullets long ago, late 70's. Cast with lube is even more important to make them even.
I actually have .44 bench rest dies with collars I had special made trying to solve the problem. It is also the reason I use only Hornady dies for all of my guns now, they have better dimensions.
Redding standard rifle dies are also wrong as are most others. They size the neck too much and you need to lift the bench when pulling the expander out. I had all of my standard dies lapped for minimum sizing and just lapped out Redding .308 dies. Too much force to pull the spud out will stretch and bend shoulders, increasing run out. That will kill accuracy big time with Weatherby brass let alone any other. Over sizing necks on rifle brass has shown as much as .030" run out but after lapping I can get .002" or less, many times zero. Greasing the insides of necks or dry lube is no solution.
Redding collar dies are the way to go.

[BCRider]

I just can't see this as a big issue for most styles of handgun shooting. But for single shot target guns it's got something to recomend it.

Reading about all the variables also makes me want to just simply give up on the idea of getting consistently tight precision rifle groups... :D Of course these things all come together in the end but it does indicate some of the attention to detail that is needed.

Would it be fair to say that rather than blindly sizing to a given neck size that it's more accurate to size for a consistent bullet insertion force? Seems to me like that would be the way to go. Neck sizing to achieve a given insertion force seems like it would take into accout all the variables at once.... or nearly so. And consistent insertion force would seem like it should result in a consistent release.

[44man]

It has never been proven neck sizing is better then FL. Only with too much head space is neck sizing or partial sizing better so you index on the shoulder. If the head space is right a FL case will still be right but partial sizing is just fine as is neck sizing until rounds get hard to chamber. You adjust for your gun. Once set to the shoulder, nothing ever needs changed.
With bottle neck cases there is no need to size too much at the neck, then force a spud through to enlarge it.
I have found a regular size die, lapped to minimum neck sizing, adjusted for shoulder contact, makes better rounds then a neck size only die.
The Lee collet die is an example. Soon cases will not chamber so they need sized more, can't happen with the collet die. Brass grows and expands in other places so now you need another set of dies so you can size more. How do you pick up brass shot from another rifle, neck size with the Lee collet and get the round to go in your gun? Pipe dreams!
Dies, adjustments, altering for fit is so important. Buying a die set for a gun is just the start and you might just get junk. Loading your own is not a simple step, you need to be able to see what happens. You might need to toss dies in the trash.
Remember how many times I have said to sit at your bench and think?
OK, I said Redding collar dies work, they really do but soon brass will again need sized more. Fact of life, don't blame me. The Lee collet die works until brass needs sized more.

[uscra112]

Hardness of the brass will certainly affect neck tension. I've sorted .357 brass after sizing, and found the mouth I.D. to vary quite a bit. I'm believing that's due to variance in the hardness, since it all went through the same die and expander.

Selecting cases that sized to the same diameter seems to help the groups from my S&W N-frame, when loading cast SWC with a mild charge of Bullseye. So it may be relevant to handguns after all.

[subsonic]

The things that people overlook are some of the things that will lead to inconsistency. Like lots of lube on the boolits or carbon buildup or case lube in the neck of a case vs a clean case.

[Irascible]

I shoot a 14", 30 Herrett barrel in the IHMSA UAS catagory. 40X40s were no problem, but shootoff targets (chickens at 200 meters) were limited to 3 or 4 out of 10. One day while sizing cases I started thinking about how hard I was having to pull on the handle and started measuring. It was sizing WAY too much. I had a few Herrett sizers and tried them all until I found the one that would size the least. Effort went way down and the case was a lot tighter in the chamber, although it still chambered easily. The problem at that point was that die sized the neck way too much. I sent the die out and had it converted to take Redding neck bushings. I now had a die with much better dimensions and no neck expansion necessary. Scores? Well the very next match was a 40X40 with 9 shootoffs. Better than ever before and with an actual group on the shootoffs. Just wonderful :>)

[Irascible]

Now for story 2
About 40 years ago, My wife bought everything I needed to reload as an anniversery/Christmas present. Among all this was an RCBS 4 die set for the 44 mag. This had seperate seater and crimper dies. Move up about 35 years. I'm expanding cases with the original .4255 jacketed expander ball when I realized all I was doing was belling the case. The expander was not sizing down so that even a .427 ball would not touch the sides (I had that one for cast bullets along with .428 and .430). So, I bought another sizing die and lo and behold It sized so the original expander would now expand the case and bell it. I started playing with expanders and ended up polishing the .427 down to .4265 and with my hot load jackets, 24gr/296 & Fed 155s, I got better accuracy from my 10" Dan Wesson, IHMSA model then ever before. The older carbide die has been relegated to cast bullet loads with the .428 and .429 expanders.

[44man]

There you go guys. Dies make or break.

[Doc Highwall]

This is where having a set of pin gages can be worth their weight in gold.

You can use the pin gages to check the inside of the cases before and after sizing to see how much you are working them in your dies.

[MakeMineA10mm]

Interesting article.

A big issue with inconsistent neck tension is variation in neck thickness. 44man mentions neck turning the least amount possible, so that one is really just "cleaning up" the neck to make it a consistent thickness all the way around. This is indeed ideal; however, one cannot do this on a case-by-case basis. One must do it across the entire "lot" of cases one is uniforming. There may be some cases which are just too thin on one side and must be culled, and there may be some thick cases out of that lot which get turned all the way around. The key is not just consistent thickness on each case (which might vary from case to case), but consistent thickness around each case AND of each case in the lot.

This is why most handgunners forego worrying about necks. I must say, I've toyed with the idea in handguns, but agreed that it didn't seem worth the effort. Maybe I need to experiment to see if there's a difference worth pursuing?