I went to the range last weekend. I shot some 316299 NOE boolits I had cast up with my new mould. Results were not as good as I wanted, but it is early yet. Lots of time to play. Things will look up I'm sure.
Anyway, after running my cases through my walnut shells, I found one with the neck cracked.
I have never liked the fact that the dies will size down the case to .302 I.D. This really does a lot of stretching on the case necks when one pulls a 303 sizer die rod back through them.
I decided to do something about it today. My cheap China made drill press and me went to work.
I dismantled the die and swabbed out the lube.
I have a piece of .250 aluminum rod with a split up the middle. I slipped a piece of emery cloth in the slot and wrapped it around the rod. I made it tight enough to where I could just slide it in the neck size portion of the die. I honed for a few seconds, in a up and down motion.
I cleaned out the debris from the die and lubed it up with a Q-tip. I then sized a case without the expander rod. Not quite there. I repeated the procedure. Still not quite there. After another run, it came out right where I wanted it. I cleaned everything up, replaced the expander rod and sized a case.
I normally partial size, to not work the case body too much.
The I.D of the sized neck is .311. With the expander rod pulled back through the necks, it is .313 +/-. My 316299 boolits are .315+.
Now the best part of this whole senario is, the necks were originally sized to .302 I.D.
The necks are being sized a full .010 less than before.
The necks on the fired cases are .338 +/- O.D; this leaves me with plenty of room for releasing the boolit.
I still have two smaller expander rods for my jacketed boolits but it looks like this rifle is going to become my cast boolit exclusive.
I hope all my math is correct. Things re looking up.
Just for your information, a small drill press in the garage or workshop can do a lot of projects in a pinch. It can be a milling machine, lathe of sorts, lapping machine and of coarse a drill.
Jack