See if it makes a difference

[cw308]

I'm sizing , charging and seating the same exact way , the only difference is with the 30 cases I shoot , I ran a smaller sized nylon cleaning brush wrapped with 0000 steel wool chucked in a drill to smooth out the inside of the necks with a few up and down strokes and seating with the Redding dry lube . Seating went smooth as silk , will see if it makes a difference or a waste of time . Didn't remove any brass from the necks .

[hounddawg]

CW I tested lubes about a year or two ago, and yes it does make seating smooth as silk. I ran tests using lubed vs non lubed with talc, Redding's graphite and a super light coating of case lube on the bullet and could find no correlation in accuracy or velocity consistency. I still use the Redding graphite just because it feels so much smoother. Try seating with a arbor press using an inline seating die and you can really feel the difference

[cw308]

The graphite makes seating so smooth feels like .001 of neck grip rather then .003 is what I'm getting . Maybe I'll go back to using it again

[Unclenick]

Cleaning inside necks removes the carbon left by firing, which can actually increase seating drag. The graphite replaces that and is a better lubricating form of carbon. Motor mica is the old alternative. You can mix either into a slurry with alcohol and use a Q-tip to coat the inside of the neck with it for maximum effect.

In theory, going to this extra trouble should provide better bullet pull consistency from round to round, but it may take firing some very large groups to see the difference clearly.

[hounddawg]

use a Q-tip to coat the inside of the neck with it for maximum effect

when I was experimenting with liquid lube in the form of lanolin/alcohol I would coat the bullet rather than the neck on the theory that during seating the excess would be pushed up and out of the case. Before seating I wiped the base of the bullet on a paper towel or shop rag to prevent powder contamination. If I had wiped the neck and seated the bullet the excess would be forced into the case.

[scatterbrain]

Which raises the question: How does lubrication of the bullet affect the desire to have more hold, more tension to increase accuracy or lower the SD?

[marchboom]

I like the idea of using a brush, or a brush with 0000 steel wool wrapped around it to smooth out the necks. Nothing drastic, just clean off the residue. Some people don't like to do this as it removes the carbon. The question is, how do you make sure the same amount of carbon is on the inside of the neck? To my knowledge it can't be controlled or measured accurately. But using a brush to clean the neck allows one to make the necks as consistent as possible.

If I'm missing something here please let me know.

[Unclenick]

Hounddawg,

With a liquid lube, I see your point. The idea with the alcohol suspension is to distribute the dry lube, letting the alcohol dry off before charging and seating. I should have said so explicitly.

[hounddawg]

With a liquid lube, I see your point. The idea with the alcohol suspension is to distribute the dry lube, letting the alcohol dry off before charging and seating. I should have said so explicitly.

okies

@scatterbrain I really noticed no differences in either short or long range groups and no differences in my chrono numbers. The seating does feel smoother, I can really feel a difference in the seating procedure.

I size so the necks are .003 smaller ID than my bullet, that seems to give me the best results in my rifles and with the lube they just slide into the case. The Redding kit is cheap and easy to use with the downside being that can be messy to work with.

[T. O'Heir]

"...Didn't remove any brass from the necks..." You removed a wee, tiny, small, insignificant bit. Steel wool is harder than brass.
It's a lot less fuss to just screw the chamfered and deburred case mouths into your lube pad every 5 or so cases.
"...as it removes the carbon..." That being the point.

[Reloadron]

During my career one of the many fun things I worked with was Neo-Lube which is no more than A tiny 2 ounce bottle goes a long way. Then too, you can just roll your own pretty easily. The alcohol, as was mentioned, is merely the carrier.

While I have never tried doing it I gave some thought to just mixing some Moly Coat which I went through a phase with moly coating bullets years ago. Have thought about using some I have with some alcohol.

As to neck tension or bullet hold who prefer that naming convention there are so many other variables involved other than the die used for sizing a case. When we seat a bullet we apply an amount of force in compression as measured in pounds of force. Aside from shooting the bullet free of the case neck if we pull a bullet using a collet there will be an amount of force applied in tension which again can be expressed on pounds. My best guess here is what we would like to see is uniformity across the lot of loaded ammunition.

With that in mind, for a given lot with the same given brass how much will it really matter at 100 or 1,000 yards? As long as the loaded rounds are uniform as to the amount of force required to pull a bullet is uniform across a loaded lot?

Like Hounddawg says:

I really noticed no differences in either short or long range groups and no differences in my chrono numbers. The seating does feel smoother, I can really feel a difference in the seating procedure.

Ron

[cw308]

See if it makes a difference , I wet tumble so my brass looks like new no carbon , using the wool , I see no signs of brass looks more like a slight polishing action . I'm using the Imperial Dry Neck Lube with those micro beads , I dip the base of the bullet into the beads and seat . I don't feel the wool removes anything and the dry lube along with cleaning the neck insides makes seating with very little resistance while keeping the same neck tension . Will see if it makes a difference , without doing the extra prepping I can feel a difference when seating , by the extra prep they all seat very smooth and I can't feel the difference , for me that seems like a good thing , we'll see .

[zeke]

Am using tighter interference fit, and hardly ever specially clean the inside necks of fired brass, other than dry tumbling. Remembering commenting on specific step of a loading procedure may not cover the whole loading procedure, or differing situations. Seating a bullet into a tighter interference fit may require a competition seating die to help concentrically.

[scatterbrain]

Holding on to the bullet is a little like holding a junkyard dog's chain, the longer you hold the more reved he gets. Mr. Guffy likes hold, I wonder what his opinion is on lubing the bullets. I want consistancey, what's the best way to get that with lubed bullets.

[cw308]

Zeke
You sound like a lawyer , making something very simple complicated . Will see if it makes a difference cleaning the necks with wool and using dry graphite lube . Pretty simple .

[cw308]

scatter
This one is right up F.Guffey's alley. I make tools ,it's impossible to bump the shoulder back only I can do that . It's like kicking a bee hive , turn run and a wait for the pain .

[Bart B.]

Originally Posted by hounddawg

I size so the necks are .003 smaller ID than my bullet, ....

Sized neck ID is .003" smaller than bullet diameter?

[cw308]

Yes

[zeke]

CW308-Am retired engineer. Can't get much simpler than dry tumbling and not cleaning the necks. It's just an alternative to a multitude of additional, and for some perhaps unnecessary steps.

[hounddawg]

Seating a bullet into a tighter interference fit may require a competition seating die to help concentrically.

Bryan Litz believes heavy neck tension can cause seating depth consistency problems and the potential damage to light jacketed bullets.

This is getting way off topic but I am going to try some experiments with light neck turning and inside reaming later on this year. I have been doing the reaming for years now but have never dabbled in neck turning

[cw308]

Zeke
I used the corn and walnut media for 25+ years , a shooting friend turned me on to the wet tumbling with stainless steel pins , made sense to me because it cleaned up the carbon buildup inside the case not to mention the primer pockets , it was like using new cases every reload . I was hooked , I'm not a volume reloader so going an extra step or two no big deal , I rotate my 3 sets of 30 cases , fire 30 rounds of 308 each week so drying time is not a problem .With the wet you have the dirty water with the media it's the dust , pick your poison I guess . I don't mind trying something , some good some not so good . At least we have a choice which works best for us . I have friends that are retired engineers , great minds , very technical. What surprised me is they don't reload , should be right up their alley. Nice dualing with you .

Chris

[zeke]

We do what works for us, hence the non-declaratory language. Am not "dueling" with anyone, just contributing. Usually, someone can make any number of techniques work. My technique does not work with ultra cleaned cases, as they can get "grabby", until polished.

While I develop loads in small amounts, usually load at least several hundred rifle loads at a time on a rock chucker. In 308 up to 800 at a time. It seems to help consistency over longer time frames.

[cw308]

Zeke
I've read articles on cold weld, it doesn't affect my loads, I shoot my reloads within a week. I'm testing with dry lube and wool to polish the inside of the necks and will see if it makes a difference. When I mentioned dueling I meant it a kidding way. Grabby until polished: do you use steel wool? Have you tried the Imperial Dry Neck Lube?

[hounddawg]

I can assure you, CW, that unless you are storing your ammo in a vacuum chamber there will be no cold welding. That may be gun shop talk for stiction or maybe more likely just gunshop boolit fertilizer, but in the real world, it is physically impossible for cold welding to occur unless the two pieces of metal are in a vacuum.

[zeke]

Only cw308 and hounddog referred to cold welding, but guess if ya got technical maybe increase in the friction coefficient during bullet seating, not allowing a smooth seating process. More so than the brandy new cases being used at the time.

Once again with the childish insults?