Stretching brass?

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
I mainly load for rear locking lever rifles. If any of you do the same how do you minimize stretching the brass when you resize? I have been reading about adjusting the dies so not to over work the brass. Also heard of lubing the inside of the case neck, to relieve some stress when the ball expander come back through.

Just neck sizing is not a real option with the levers.
 

shadycove

Twelve Pointer
My 1911 year model Savage 99 in 303 Savage has a big chamber, brass is rare and so I have to watch for this in this rifle. As long I use brass fired in this rifle, my Lee Collet die does just fine. It is a neck sizing die only.
I load for a friend who has some vintage 1894 Winchesters and the same has proved true in them.
Load a few and then cycle them thru the gun without firing, go slow since some guns won't eject a loaded round. If they will all chamber and let the breechblock close, you are golden.
If not, most loading manuals tell how to "partially size" brass to help stop you problem.
If all else fails, PM me, I have done alot of reloading since the first Lee handloader that I bought back in the late 1960's.
 
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Tunanut

Ten Pointer
Annealing is the only thing I know of to releases the stress of work hardening in the neck.
 

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
Responding top to bottom.

wl704, I do trim my brass. I can get two loads out of the brass, before being to long. Brass is hard to come by for some of my rifles, for these I have hundreds of new or once fired brass. I just want to get maximum life out of them.

Taxidermist, neck sizing may work but these are lever rifles and lack the power to chamber and eject tight fitting cases.

Shadycove, I have thought about the Lee Collet die. I would have to get custom dies made(.356 Win and 338 MX). I will be trying to adjust the dies I have to partial size. However; the other day when I decided to try this I still got variances between cases. This really made me scratch my head. I did not have any problem with these cases cycling in either of the rifles.

Tunanut, I am trying to reduce the amount of "working" the brass, so maybe I won't have to anneal any brass for a good while. Sounds like it is a fine line between not annealing and ruining a case.

Thanks, for the replies and advice.
 

Tunanut

Ten Pointer
If you need some annealed, I can take care of it for you. This contraption makes it pretty easy, I run them though it every 3 or 4 firings. I'm pretty anal about neck tension, if I feel any squeeze back after I run an expander though, it gets annealed. Good brass gets a dozen or more firings for me doing this. Primer pockets give out before the brass does.
IMG_20120315_2045032.jpg
 

tarheelshooter

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
Is it possible to anneal nickle brass?
I have some 300 Blackout that I formed from nickle .223 brass (probably should have used brass...but hey it was free)

You can try a partial sizing by pushing the shoulder back a few thousandths. I FL size on any repeater (just a personal preference) and 30-30 brass seems to get around 10-12 loads before neck splits occur or pockets get loose.
 

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
Thanks for the offer Tunanut. What brand annealer do you have? I have seen another but not that one.

tarheelshooter, I have never annealed. In the reading that I have done somewhere I did rerad you could anneal nickle plate brass.
 

Tunanut

Ten Pointer
It's a Giraud. Doug makes a great stuff for shooters. http://www.giraudtool.com/

Yes, you can anneal nickel brass. They should be calibrated separate from regular brass as the time under the flame needed is usually different.
 

1SHOT1KILL

Old Mossy Horns
The main reason that neck sizing will not work for a lever rifle is that ALL brass will stretch regardles of actions type. Even that best brass used in the best most expensive and closest tolerance custom bolt actions, with the best match grade barrel, chambered with the best reamers ever made, to absolutely minimal tolerances, will require the shoulder to be "bumped" after every 4-6 firings. In a lever action brass tends to strech even faster, maybe every every shot but in my experiences c ertainly with 2-3 firings & resizings. There are certain things you can do to minimize your working and stretch of the case necks.

First thing is you need to take a peice of fired brass, that is a little tight or slightly hard to chamber in your rifle. Set you FL sizing die up so you are "neck" sizing only (you can even removed the decapping rod/expander ball if you'd like), then soot up the shoulder of the case and screw the FL sizer die in about 1/8th of a turn at a time, and run case up in the die until you see the case shoulder just barely starting to be "bumped" by the die. Now screw the die in 1/8th of a turn and run the case up in the die, then try it in the chamber to see if it still is tight or hard to chamber or is it chambering freely with no resitance at all. Idealy you would want a case sized so that the round will chamber with a little bit of squeeze to the lever to seat the round fully and you sould be able to "feel" it in the lever, but you should not have to squeeze the lever hard to seat the round fully.

Once you have found that sweet spot for your FL sizing die, you should be good to go, but you may still need to trim your necks back about .010" below what the factory specs call for every 4-6 reloadings. If you want to prevent over working the necks you can get a Redding neck bushing FL "S" die. They make different size neck bushings so you can size the necks to the bare minimum needed and cause less drag on the expander ball. Also like Tunanut said, annealing your brass necks and shoulders every 3-6 firings depening on the hotness of the load and amount of working the brass during the sizing operations, will increase the brass life.
 

shadycove

Twelve Pointer
DRS, annealed, sized, trimmed and fired brass run through a Lee collet die will need trimming after 5-6 loads [maybe more at lever gun velocities]. As for getting Lee to do a custom die, no problem but it is a long wait. If it was me, I would get a 338 Federal collet die and a 358 Winchester collet die and use them. On those dies, everything works from the decapping rod out so you should be fine since the lever gun/rimmed cartridges are a little smaller in the body/shoulder than the 308 based cartridges. I use the 308 collet die for my 300 Savage/303 Savage reloading. Very accurate and never had a "fail to function" but I measure every firing before annealing, sizing and again after. If you can't find a 338 Federal collet die, let me know and I will loan mine to you. Good luck.
 

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
1Shot, Thanks for the info.

SC, I didn't see a .358 Win. listed. With the collet dies for other cartridges do you just keep testing until you get it right?
 

HillBilly2

Four Pointer
The main reason that neck sizing will not work for a lever rifle is that ALL brass will stretch regardles of actions type. Even that best brass used in the best most expensive and closest tolerance custom bolt actions, with the best match grade barrel, chambered with the best reamers ever made, to absolutely minimal tolerances, will require the shoulder to be "bumped" after every 4-6 firings. In a lever action brass tends to strech even faster, maybe every every shot but in my experiences c ertainly with 2-3 firings & resizings. There are certain things you can do to minimize your working and stretch of the case necks.

First thing is you need to take a peice of fired brass, that is a little tight or slightly hard to chamber in your rifle. Set you FL sizing die up so you are "neck" sizing only (you can even removed the decapping rod/expander ball if you'd like), then soot up the shoulder of the case and screw the FL sizer die in about 1/8th of a turn at a time, and run case up in the die until you see the case shoulder just barely starting to be "bumped" by the die. Now screw the die in 1/8th of a turn and run the case up in the die, then try it in the chamber to see if it still is tight or hard to chamber or is it chambering freely with no resitance at all. Idealy you would want a case sized so that the round will chamber with a little bit of squeeze to the lever to seat the round fully and you sould be able to "feel" it in the lever, but you should not have to squeeze the lever hard to seat the round fully.

Once you have found that sweet spot for your FL sizing die, you should be good to go, but you may still need to trim your necks back about .010" below what the factory specs call for every 4-6 reloadings. If you want to prevent over working the necks you can get a Redding neck bushing FL "S" die. They make different size neck bushings so you can size the necks to the bare minimum needed and cause less drag on the expander ball. Also like Tunanut said, annealing your brass necks and shoulders every 3-6 firings depening on the hotness of the load and amount of working the brass during the sizing operations, will increase the brass life.

Agree 100%, I adjust my sizing die by unscrewing it a few turns, put a fired case in and raise the ram fully, then screw the die in by hand until it stops on the case, lower the ram and tighten it another 1/8 to 1/4 turn. It should function fine, if not tighten a little more until it does.

Case life can be extended a lot by the loads you pick. A grain or two less powder can make cases last longer, and I doubt a deer would notice the difference. Slower powder can sometimes give decent velocities at lower pressure.
 
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