Thread: Fill length resizing not using expander button.

Following a comment from a member, I thought I'd give it a go. Interesting results.

First up 7 x 57 using Lyman FL die. Expander and spindle removed. Looking good, now to seat a projectile, see how it pans out. Using Forster bullet seating die.
Was nice and smooth, even resistance. Looked good to the naked eye.

Next up .308 using Hornady Custome Grade FL die. Looking good, now to seat dummy projectile, again using Forster bullet seating die. Well that wasn't great, heaps of resistance. Too much force required, so I stopped. Had a look at the cartridge, bugger me, projectile causing very noticible flare in the neck.

Try 7x57 again, this time using a Hornady Custome Grade die. Exactly same result as the 308 when seating projectile.

Would appear the Hornady dies really work the neck, probably not a good thing.

So, at this stage, I'll continue to use the expander with the 308.

However I'm going to load a small batch of 7x57 processed using the Lyman die and see what happens at the range, hopefully on Monday. Load currently shoots just under MOA.

Doing this for shits and giggles really, just curious.

Any one care to comment on the Hornady dies though?

I use all Redding gear, if you want a good vid on not using expander look up a guy by the name of panhandle on youtube and he will take you through all you need to know.

I hope this helps

I just leave the plurry thing in......the thread got me thinking about this...the whackamole system has done it for years..... the neck is squeazed in to a predetermined amount... and thats considered good enough.... a boattail projectile makes life easier...as does a good champher/countersink on case neck.

Ive got older hornady dies in .270w and they are great
Ive also got new .308w dies and I dont rate them at all.....I BELIEVE...the web area of those .308 dies is too fat/close to maximum allowed..it caused me no end of grief in a BLR....

You're right abou the old whackamole @Micky Duck. All I'm doing is the same thing with a press. I'm just curious, I'll have a watch of Panhandle and go from there. I'm interested to see what happens with the 7 x 57 groups. As for the BLR, I had no end of trouble with one of those using Fed Blue Box. It'd shoot very well, just couldn;t extract the bloody things.

Just poked together 10 rounds resized with whacamole. 3 were harder to seat projectiles.i believe it was because I neglected to champher case mouth

now RugerM77 you naughty fella.....how really have me thinking....IF a fella was to neck turn a few cases,then run them through the whackamole.....it would give results almost as consistant as these fellas with the flash harry gear LOL....
mind you though,sorting my cases and loading all the same ones would help too LMFAO....
so in THEORY..... to achieve the same end result....if you took your FLR die apart and carefully opened up the neck area...you could achieve same,less worked result,the case wouldnt get squeazed as much before the expander ball slipped easily back out..

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Just poked together 10 rounds resized with whacamole. 3 were harder to seat projectiles.i believe it was because I neglected to champher case mouth

I use a Lyman M die to expand the majority of the calibres I load for even the ones I have Bushing dies for
takes care of any slight differences in case neck thickness.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

now RugerM77 you naughty fella.....how really have me thinking....IF a fella was to neck turn a few cases,then run them through the whackamole.....it would give results almost as consistant as these fellas with the flash harry gear LOL....
mind you though,sorting my cases and loading all the same ones would help too LMFAO....
so in THEORY..... to achieve the same end result....if you took your FLR die apart and carefully opened up the neck area...you could achieve same,less worked result,the case wouldnt get squeazed as much before the expander ball slipped easily back out..

Save the hassle and order a forster full length die with custom neck size, waiting on one from reloading direct at the moment.

nah..will just carry on using the FLR as per instructions in most any reloading manual produced in last 75years LOL... old saying..if its working why bother stuffing around with it???

The issue is you might be sizing work hardened brass. You therefore have a very tight cramped neck. Excuse pun. The seating is into that tight cavity with no room for movement. Anneal every time. You don't have to spend zillions on some fancy machine. Just need to spend time. The expander in being drawn twice thru a hardened space. Logically it does not make sense. Once the neck is sized why do you have to do it again? You dont put another bullet into a dead deer do you? Never had a issue and I have done quite a few thousand over a number of calibres...222, 223, 243, 270. My 2C is that you get a better projectile release and if that happens you sorta get a tighter group at the end? The stag at 2.20am on Saturday morning never knew what hit it with a 53gr Barnes. Like the old Light Force spotty the expander got hiffed as far away as I could throw it. All reloading via a T7 and Redding and CM and Makita 18v.

Grotty insides of necks cause issues and I found scrubbing the necks clean wirh bronze brush and then lightly lubing the inside with a cotton bud ightly coated with Lee case lube evens neck tension pretty well. Annealing as well before sizing makes it even better.

I use redding dies with neck bushings, and dont use the expander button at all. I do this in all my calibres. The reason i initially did this was poor concentricity in the neck. A little bit of experimenting with the bushings at the outset, then i was into it.
Works for me.

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i remove all my expanders, but i have a apw neck tension mandrel

Hornady FL dies are aids. They resize and expand far to aggressively. I think I measured a 10 thou difference between shrinking and expanding the neck (something outrageous anyway) with my 308 FL die.

Originally Posted by Beavis

Hornady FL dies are aids. They resize and expand far to aggressively. I think I measured a 10 thou difference between shrinking and expanding the neck (something outrageous anyway) with my 308 FL die.

Yep, this - the only dies I've managed to jam a case in have been Hornady and I think it is purely due to the neck squeeze amount (the neck than has to get dragged back out over the expander ball so you hit a point where the neck is squashed into the die at the same time as it is hitting the expander ball). My experience with the Hornady dies are they produce ammo without much runout that is accurate but they work the brass a huge amount and end up costing a fair bit of effort at the other end in terms of annealing time etc etc. I'm currently using bushing neck size dies without the expander ball (just kissing the neck in enough to give sufficient neck tension) and depriming using a Lee universal depriming die.