Lyman 45 Short Neck Sizing Die Question

[tangsight]

Rifle is a model 74 Sharps. Load is 68 grains of sifted FFFg Schuetzen (Prefer Goex, but ....). Shoots very well with fire formed cases (no sizing whatsoever) and slip fit boolits that are so sloppy they will fall out if the cases are inverted. For the life of me, I cannot see how these boolits could be concentric. So, bought a Lyman 45 short neck sizing die (the one that serves 45-70, 45-90, and 45-100), hoping to get a little more neck tension. Boolit is 457125 round nose, sized to 0.458".

The plan is to size the necks with the die, then use a BACO .458"/.461" stepped expander plug (mine actually measures .4585") to bring the inside case walls back to about .4575" after the brass springs back.

The die body is threaded to mount the decapping pin, which I do not use, and have removed. Those threads accept the BACO expander plug. But that is a coincidence, right? This die just reduces the neck diameter, it doesn't also expand, right? Or: Is it possible, in a second step, to install the BACO expander in the Lyman neck sizing die body and insert the sized case again, to be expanded? Surely not.

I have an old RCBS die (part of a three die set) I have used in the past to expand these cases, before the rifle told me it liked the slip fits better. I should switch to it for the expansion part of things, right?

Thanks in advance for any information you could provide. I always seem to get the answers I need here.

Chuck

[Don McDowell]

If your bullet is sloppy in an unsized fired case the bullet is likely to small for the throat and can give you accuracy and leading problems

[tangsight]

Don

No leading problems I can see, but you never know. Accuracy, well, you tell me. My normal routine is one fouler, four sighters, then ten for record, from a bench over crossed sticks, into a six inch bull at 200 yards (the furthest there is locally). I shoot two such targets of a morning. I routinely shoot ten for ten into the black, eight of which are within four inches. My best is fourteen of fifteen in the black (the fouler was two inches out). Two or three minutes of angle, I guess. I pinned the target over my desk. Pretty cluttered. My take is I could improve on this if the boolits didn't seem so loose. It could mean the rifle is a fine shooter if I could just find my way.

I admit I have thought about changing the alloy to a harder boolit, maybe 16 to 1 lead to tin instead of the 20 to 1 I currently use. That would increase the diameter, wouldn't it? Harder boolits shrink less?

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it more than can be put into words.

[barkerwc4362]

What is the size of your rifle's throat? What is the as cast diameter of your bullet? Are the un-sized bullets a tighter fit in the case ? I would recommend getting a .460 sizer die and just lube the bullets. I shoot smokeless paper patched bullets out of my Browning 1886 and they are sized .459 after they are patched. I would hand lube some as cast bullets and see if they fit the fired cases. If they don't you probably need a bullet mold that casts a larger diameter bullet. In my 40-65 sharps I use a .410 lube die which does not size the bullet only lubes it. They just fit in my fired cases after I uniform them with a lyman 40 cal m die. I use the lyman 40 cal taper crimp die to just take the bell out of the cases to ensure they will chamber.
Bill

[Don McDowell]

If you push a white flannel patch thru the bore and it comes out with any grey ish or other discoloration then you’ve got some scrubbing to do
What are you doing for fouling control
Yes 16-1 will be a touch bigger

[tangsight]

Don

Patches are clean and white after two weeks in the safe (I shoot every other Monday). Cleaning patches at the range come out only with black gooey fouling. I wipe after every shot: One pass with a patch wetted with prediluted antifreeze (the blue stuff); then one pass with a dry patch, then a chamber mop.

Barker

There is a transition step that is about 0.067", followed by a freebore segment that does not taper that is about .104". Then there is a leade segment which is about .153", where the rifling begins to ramp up. All told, .323" or .324" for throat. As cast diameter of my 457125 Lyman round nose is about .458", maybe .459". I size it to .458", but it doesn't take any effort. They would be a "tighter fit in the case", I suppose, but when I cast, I let the boolits cool, then size, then weigh in a quick sequence, so I don't really know, they never get to see the cases in the unsized state. Sorry. And, I have a second, recently acquired, Lyman round nose mould which casts larger, so I can try that.

Chuck

[hiram]

I have a Lyman 45 short neck sizer. It 'neck' sizes the top of the case but leaves the lower end alone. I find I don't need it and so I am going to be selling it.

[tangsight]

Hiram

As it pertains to my original question: After you neck size, I presume you then expand the neck so the inner wall of the case is the diameter you want, and you do that with an expander ball. Do you use the Lyman neck sizer die body , or do you use a different, separate die body?

Thanks in advance for your interest. As I mentioned above, the willingness to help out those in need of the accumulated expertise here always amazes me.

Chuck

[Don McDowell]

One thing you should ask yourself. If the rifle and target are happy, then why aren't you?

[tangsight]

Don

Thanks for your input, as always. I infer from everyone's avoidance of the words "neck size" that it isn't the way to go. Rather than reducing the diameter of the case inner wall to fit the boolit, it is a better idea to increase the diameter of the boolit, either with a mould that casts bigger, or with an alloy that drops bigger from the mould I currently use. That is the avenue I will take.

Chuck

[Don McDowell]

I’ve found neck sizing is only good for bottle neck cases so you don’t bother the head space
Others may have differing opinions but if you need to size and expand then full length resizing keeps things more uniform

[tangsight]

Don

I had been full length resizing and then expanding, until I accidentally forgot that step. Several days had gone by, after I had cleaned the cases, and I simply thought (wrongly) that I had already sized and expanded. Got to the point during loading where the cases were charged and the boolits were lubed and ready to seat. Lo and behold, the first one just "fell" into the case. Once I figured out what I had done, I resigned myself to shooting what I was convinced would be a wasted session. But the rifle did not agree. It liked those fire formed cases and those loose boolits. Repeated that load the next shooting session, just to see if it was a fluke. Nope, not a fluke. The rifle was clear: "More of THAT, my love". Since then I have been tweaking the edges, but I have left the fire formed cases and the slip fit boolits unchanged. The neck sizing idea was just the next tweak. I will leave it be and try a slightly wider boolit.

[Don McDowell]

It would be interesting to see what it says about eating fatter bullets

[tangsight]

Don

My next shooting session will be February sixth, so there is time to cast a few of those fat guys. If this thread can be kept open that long, I will report on the results.

Chuck

[Lead pot]

Tang sight try this.
When you get home from the range, deprime and clean your brass.
Now take the depriming stem out of your sizing die, what ever it is, full length or a neck sizing die. A taper crimp would be a better option as well as a short neck sizing die.
Raise that die in your press high enough so an empty case in the shell holder does not make contact with the ram up.
Now screw the die down till you feel pressure from the die making contact with the case and stop screwing the die down.
Here is where a neck or taper crimp die would be better but a full length will also work.
Now adjust that die with the empty case till it gets reduced enough that it will put friction on the bullet but you can still finger seat it.
Now you can use that die by tightening the contact slightly on a loaded case till the neck has enough tenchion so it don't drop out. When you get this tension lock the die in place.
A Lyman die with the depriming stem out will let a bullet pass so you can put a slight or very tight taper to hold the bullet.
Working your brass by sizing and expanding you will harden the brass if you don't anneal it and it will fail faster.
A short neck or a taper crimp die would be a better option than a full-length die.
I do this with my PP loads.

[hiram]

Chuck --

After using the short neck size, I run an expander die into the case not so much to expand the case neck, but to flair the mouth open a LITTLE. This allows the lead bullet to be seated in the case without shaving any lead off.

[martinibelgian]

Alignment with slip-fit bullets is easy, just seat them at a length to touch the rifling. You'll get instant auto alignment.

[Larry Gibson]

Hiram

As it pertains to my original question: After you neck size, I presume you then expand the neck so the inner wall of the case is the diameter you want, and you do that with an expander ball. Do you use the Lyman neck sizer die body , or do you use a different, separate die body?

Thanks in advance for your interest. As I mentioned above, the willingness to help out those in need of the accumulated expertise here always amazes me.

Chuck

I've been using the Lyman short 45 sizer to size my 45-70 cases for many years. You could use a normal case neck expander, but you would not be able to flair the case mouth for seating cast bullets. That is with a one stroke operation. A seperate M-die or similar die with its own adjustment is needed. Unless you want to take the time and effort of switching out parts and re-adjusting the die body ofr each type of use.

[Sgt H]

What Lead Pot is describing is partial resizing. It works well with tapered straight wall rounds like the 45-70. I load rounds for my Sharps that way and it likes its boolits seated out where they slightly engage the rifling in the throat. It usually works out where the sizing die is backed out 3-5 turns and only sizes a short portion of the neck, then expand/flare as usual. I don't crimp the rounds for the Sharps and the slight flare from the BACO expander does not cause any chambering issues but I am shooting smokeless. Due to the case taper the body of the case is not going to be sized but will have enough tension on the neck to avoid boolits falling out. Have a 2nd set of dies set for full length sizing and crimping ammo for hunting.

[Lead pot]

Sgt,

I don't flair the neck, I don't like doing that. It just stresses the brass too much. I seat the bullet in the case unsized and run it into the den just enough to hold the bullet so it wont release when loading it. I don't like to fumble around when at a match picking up bullets :D. I never use a crimp.
A crimp is in order if your using a Pig like Larry is holding in his Avatar :D
How are your ears Larry?? Mine are burned out. The .45 ACP's just would not stay in the ears when it started to rattle :D

[tangsight]

Martinibelgian

Ah... I DO seat my boolits out such that they touch the rifling, but only just. If that aligns them automatically, it would explain the good results. Mystery solved.

Larry

I have expanded my cases both ways over the years: With two separate expander plugs, one for expanding the necks, and another to flair the mouths; and with a stepped expander that expands and flairs in a single stroke. So it would not seem to me like too much of an inconvenience, probably. However, Martinibelgian's information about the (heretofore unknown to me) effect of seating the boolits into the rifling makes neck sizing seem like much less of a necessity than I thought it was.

Hiram

So I would have been using the neck sizer in a different way than you. Informative. Thanks for responding.

Lead Pot

I feel your pain about searching for boolits that have fallen out. One of the few good things about those loose babies was I could show them to the curious by pulling one out. Until the day I reached for a cartridge and knocked another one over, sending the boolit onto the concrete slab, and denting the nose. Gah!

Thanks again to everyone. Like Tom Cruise in "Interview with a Vampire": I feel better!

Chuck

[Larry Gibson]

Sgt,.......A crimp is in order if your using a Pig like Larry is holding in his Avatar :D
How are your ears Larry?? Mine are burned out. The .45 ACP's just would not stay in the ears when it started to rattle :D

Huh?

[smilie=l: