Thread: Neck tension

For what it's worth, I used to load my 22 hornet with no neck sizing at all. I used a paper towel cup to hold the bullet which after seating got dipped into molten waxy lube which held the bullet tight enough to not move in the mag or otherwise until fired. I was using the lowest power rifle primer and the heaviest bullet to resist bullet dislodgement be the primer. Accuracy and velocity was superb. Perhaps the same applies to larger calibers. Neck tension should resist dislodgement of the bullet by the primer alone. Having said that, I know my 303 will dislodge a 180gr bullet with a standard primer (empty case) after fully annealing the necks yet accuracy is pretty good (1 MOA). With fully annealed case necks and a lubed bullet and neck interior, neck tension should be pretty consistent and that may be the reason for the good accuracy.

Same here... the consistency of tension rather than the absolute figure made a difference for me. I had dropped the use of inside neck lube when using the TiN bushes without the expander and groups opened up. Going back to lube there is better consistency in the felt force for seating and this seems to be carrying over into lower ES and better groups. Contrary to conventional wisdom I've now gone back to using the expander in the bushing die without any apparent ill effects. I adjust the die to size a little over half the available neck. That all said I'm only shooting half-MOA. The relative importance of these things including the effect of absolute tension would no doubt become apparent if I could shoot better so as my answer to VC's original question having tried the full spread of bushes; no difference.

Also covered back in this thread:
http://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co.n...-process-9396/
in particular 7mmsaum's view (for those whose skills allow the differences to be determined I imagine)