Thread: Neck turning...is it worth doing ?

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

you need to trim to length and debur inside and out first...... but if your reloading guru who is teaching you says to do so...it would be downright rude to not do so while still under his tutorage.... did you ever work out what caused the dings on sized case being chambered??? maybe part of reason he is suggesting it for your rifle.
WHEN you buy LEE case length trimmer you will have handy gizmo to hold base that goes in cordless drill......lots of jobs are much easier then....

Hi Micky... pleased to hear from you again.
I'm certainly not going to turn down his help , you are right there. Just seems a bit over the top what he is saying to do , but being a comp shooter I guess he wants to do as much as possible for accuracy and consistency.
And he told me if you want to learn , learn how it's done properly then decide what you want to do or not after you know the full process.... and you can't argue with that logic.....
I really appreciate his helping me out and I am trying to take in as much as possible . I am also lucky he has the appropriate tools for 338 as he shoots a 338 edge so I am counting my blessings there also .
And as for the denting still not conclusive but the boss thinks something to do with ejection of the case. I won't worry to much about that until all the brass is done and sized and will cycle a few through then and see what happens.

If you're just going for gongs then i think this may be past yhe point of diminishing returns for you. But if you're hunting for a .2" reduction in your 100m groups then this can help
I do it on all my brass, including unmentionable 243 range finds. I get bored you see

so far I have only turned .308 cases, it made a measurable improvement. I probably would not bother for a hunting rifle. I was blown away how irregular my Hornady brass was- I have yet to do my Lapua cases but I'm hoping they leave less shavings

Originally Posted by Ftx325

Well they are considered to be plinking rounds....
That's not an easy question to answer. On good days I could put three hurried shots into less than an inch. Two weeks later I couldn't hit a 300 mm plate at 400 mtrs. A month after that I walked rounds out to a km at targets 600 mm square at 200 mtr intervals and got 4 out of 4 on the km plate.
The biggest problem I think is most likely me when it comes to accuracy and being consistent in shouldering the rifle. Being full carbon it weighs about the same as a standard hunting rifle and jumps around which makes life interesting. It shoots alot better from the bipod I have discovered. Whenever I rest it on a sandbag it bounces all over the place under recoil.
But hunting every round I have shot has gone exactly where I wanted it to out to 600+ mtrs.
I seem to shoot better when it counts for some reason....

I know what conclusion I would be drawing from that
At the end of the day it's hunting ammo, I don't believe all the extra steps are necessary.
You will no doubt benefit from the extra trigger time loading affords you but personally I don't think neck turning is somewhere you need to be.
If you were consistently getting 1/2" groups and wanted to cut that down to 1/4" groups maybe I would suggest all the other steps mentioned in my earlier reply but even then it comes down to the shooter and the rifle.
It won't do you any harm to learn but I think when it comes to loading your own rounds at home on your gear it will just be more stuff you need to buy

Originally Posted by dannyb

I know what conclusion I would be drawing from that
At the end of the day it's hunting ammo, I don't believe all the extra steps are necessary.
You will no doubt benefit from the extra trigger time loading affords you but personally I don't think neck turning is somewhere you need to be.
If you were consistently getting 1/2" groups and wanted to cut that down to 1/4" groups maybe I would suggest all the other steps mentioned in my earlier reply but even then it comes down to the shooter and the rifle.
It won't do you any harm to learn but I think when it comes to loading your own rounds at home on your gear it will just be more stuff you need to buy

I hear ya danny. I pointed that out to my mentor but his argument was anything that can potentially reduce group size and improve accuracy , particularly hunting at longer ranges, has to be a good thing , and I can't really argue with that logic either .
And as you say more trigger time will be beneficial for me too and the cost of factory rounds has been a limiting factor there , so hopefully reloading will make the ammo side costs drop off so as I'm not counting every dollar when I cycle one into the chamber. At 7 dollars a round for the ' cheap ' federal I was using that becomes a big number very quickly.....
And I don't think it's all me... I am not the greatest shot in the world by any means but have been shooting for nearly 30 years so not exactly a newbie either... I do think the rounds are a contributing factor also.
I guess in a weeks when I start firing off a few reloads we will see.....

Originally Posted by Ftx325

I hear ya danny. I pointed that out to my mentor but his argument was anything that can potentially reduce group size and improve accuracy , particularly hunting at longer ranges, has to be a good thing , and I can't really argue with that logic either .
And as you say more trigger time will be beneficial for me too and the cost of factory rounds has been a limiting factor there , so hopefully reloading will make the ammo side costs drop off so as I'm not counting every dollar when I cycle one into the chamber. At 7 dollars a round for the ' cheap ' federal I was using that becomes a big number very quickly.....

Trust me you wont save a cent you'll just shoot more but that's not a bad thing
In reality you need to be shooting consistently (not just when it counts) before you'll see any benefit at the end of the day your call.
I also learnt a fair bit from a comp shooter ( both loading and shooting) but even he says so much is unnecessary for hunting ammo and he doesn't bother doing it for hunting ammo.

Originally Posted by Ftx325

I hear ya danny. I pointed that out to my mentor but his argument was anything that can potentially reduce group size and improve accuracy , particularly hunting at longer ranges, has to be a good thing , and I can't really argue with that logic either .
And as you say more trigger time will be beneficial for me too and the cost of factory rounds has been a limiting factor there , so hopefully reloading will make the ammo side costs drop off so as I'm not counting every dollar when I cycle one into the chamber. At 7 dollars a round for the ' cheap ' federal I was using that becomes a big number very quickly.....
And I don't think it's all me... I am not the greatest shot in the world by any means but have been shooting for nearly 30 years so not exactly a newbie either... I do think the rounds are a contributing factor also.
I guess in a weeks when I start firing off a few reloads we will see.....

He's right in that doing everything possible has got to help. That's one way of looking at it.

The other way is that guns are a dark art and something that is meant to help sometimes has the opposite effect, so everything must be tested.

There's a cascading series of improvements. Major influences are things like powder charge, powder type, projectile type, primer type etc. These give big percentage changes.

The the percentage changes get smaller and smaller and at some point you decide the cut off.

Some people just love to fiddle. Me personally I like reloading but I have 700 cases in my favorite chambering and I'm just pleased to be finished when loading them.

A lot of it is a tedious waste of time and some things are counter productive.

The "do everything because it might help" position means your mentor is basically a masochist. These disturbed individuals just love to reload. The more steps the better.

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Originally Posted by hamsav

I guess there's different ways of lookin at this . When I first got guns (bsa ss .22 with aperture sight) I was sure that given a good rest all the bullets would go thru one hole.....they didnt. I know the kill zone on a deer ( for instance ) is about a foot in diameter so I figures ,how far away would I need to be with my 338lm before I couldnt put most if not all rounds into that zone, cant remember how far away you were hitting that gong , but its further than you would want to take a hunting shot ,so as long as you can shoot 2 moa your good for 600 yards ......and for some peeps thats where it ends ,but 2moa is fuck all , this cannon should be able to do ½ that, probly ½ moa. For me just hitting the deer in the bread basket wasnt enough otherwise Id be chuckin spears at them, I wanted the bullet to go where I sent it ,that little area that hides behind the intersection of the cross hairs in the scope , not just in the niebourhood .........I had to learn to let it go .....a bit. As others have said better off putting your time and money into trigger time.

That last sentence is the kicker.

I started shooting a thousand rounds of cheap factory 223 on paper, even though its crappy ammo.

Shoot a crappy load a lot and you can still tighten it up.

The rifle/primer had very long lock time so shooting technique with that rifle/ammo/scope gave heaps of room for improvement. Selling it was even better.

Minute of Dead Thing is actually pretty big. 2" groups are fine for hunting to 300m



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Ah, the old "putting your time into trigger time" whilst is non arguable trigger time for me is weekends so nothing wrong with practicing the best reloading techniques, in preperation, during the week.

Crap ammo is always crap ammo no matter how much trigger time.

And good trigger time is getting out the humble 22 and firing off bricks off hand.

Oh, and I neck turn, where appropriate.

I always stick to.. if you can shoot crap ammo ok it can only get better.

Nah...you might get better, the ammo never will.
I don't waste my time with crap ammo, but what I call crap ammo may be perfectly ok for others.

I think the thing is I have always used my rifles for hunting/shooting at live targets. From possum shooting and paid pest controller at a nursery nailing rabbits and hares , often with on the run headshots , but never been one to go to the range and just shoot except for sighting in a scope.
I find hunting to be my natural environment for shooting and I think instincts take over when you take a shot under that kind of situation. And I don't shoot unless I am confident of a good hit and very rarely have I lost a wounded animal.
Now I know I am pretty good shot with a 22 from my pest control days but I took the lad to an indoor 22 rifle club for a play and I was taking my time with the shots as the gentleman was suggesting and was shooting decidedly averagely. Then I just completely ignored the fact I was at a range and stopped thinking about what I was doing and second guessing every shot and just shot the rifle and started shooting 9 and 10 every shot until my eyes started crapping out. I got told off for not taking my time and shooting to fast but showed I am more accurate if I just point and pull the trigger than spend all day thinking about it. And I believe it is more natural for me that way as that is how i've always shot.
Does that make sense to anyone ?

Yep ive seen some wierd techniques but different things work for different people

Also used to neck turn for a standard 308 chambering.
Read somewhere that the cheap and cheerful Lee collect Neck die, can regulate neck thickness, never measured that, but rounds shoot quarter inch, concentricity is excellent with the lee die and I have use Redding S neck bushing dies, which I sold with the neck turner. Keeping it simple.

Originally Posted by hamsav

#ucking brilliant have you just got here ? yeah , I think we are all there , just (still) sorting out when its appropriate . :-) :-)

Was my statement too cryptic for you?