Poor neck tension with Lee neck dies

[davery25]

As the title indicates I'm getting poor neck tension from my Lee Neck Sizing dies in 6.5x55 swede and 223 remington.

Is there a way to tighten up neck tension with lee dies?

I'm not really interested in buying other die sets but did notice that the one set of redding dies i have do give good neck tension

[hodaka]

I'm assuming you are refering to the collet dies. In my experience they take a lot of force on the press handle to work properly. Still, I have had to smooth the mandrel with sandpaper to reduce the diameter slightly. Lee will also reduce the mandrel for a small cost.

[ruger357w]

I've had the same problem with lee neck sizing dies' (collet dies). The problem I had was they were inconsistent. there's no way I could tell how much force I was useing while resizing so some would have good neck tension on some and others would not. Couldn't make my 22-250 or 22 hornet shot good. I ended up buying different die's and problem solved. I do like Lee die's just not fond of the collet die's.

[jepp2]

Is there a way to tighten up neck tension with lee dies?

Collet for full length sizing die?

If it is the collet die you can either purchase a reduced size mandrel from Lee or reduce the diameter of yours buy chucking it in a drill and using sandpaper. But, if the brass you are sizing has been sized many times and necks have work hardened, you need to anneal the necks.

If it is the full length sizing die, you can reduce the size of the expander. Same process, chuck the decapping rod in your drill and sand down the expander.

You also might try full length sizing your brass without the expander in place and measure the neck OD. Then expand the neck and see how much you are expanding it.

Lots of folks have trouble with the collet die. You MUST read the instructions and follow them or you are going to be disappointed. I use them for all my rifle calibers and have no problems at all with them.

[1stmar]

Lee will send you an undersized mandrel for 5$. Before ordering make sure you have the die adjusted correctly and when sizing follow the instructions, raise the ram, lower it, turn the case 180 degrees and run it up again. It does take some force, I use a lee breech lock hand press and it works well and is not overly difficult. Brass thickness and spring back will effect the neck tension a little bit but more more then running it over an expander ball. I have found much more consistent concentricity and when you get the die adjusted right the neck tension is right IMO.

[hodaka]

BTW- I was unhappy with my first set in 25-06 for the reason you are stating. Now I have them for nearly every caliber that I reload.

[davery25]

I can't imagine more force is necessary, i've putting pushing down the ram very hard and have cracked the table i was using necessitating a remounting of the press onto a special bracket so it can't be that.

I've set up the die according to the instructions. I might look into this undersized mandrel option. Thanks guys

if i take sandpaper to it, how much will i need to take off?

[1stmar]

No more then .001

[5R milspec]

guys with a RockChucker press and the primers removed it takes little effort to resize a neck on a case with a Lee collet die.( even with a little Lee press ) I would almost bet he hasn't got the die set right,but I too could be wrong.You can even feel the collet working better when the primer has been removed before resizeing.Know this too well,Lee dies are what I use and for some time now.


If I end up being wrong then the other suggested fixes will help.

Looked at the post's again.You say you have the die set right,but is the die cap all the way down if not this will allow the die not to work right.It allows the matting part of the collet to be pushed up into the die rather than staying in place for the collet to be pushed into it.Or the same part can become stuck in a high spot in the die not allowing the collet to work right.Check to make sure that the matting part to the collet is loose inside of the die,not real loose but loose ( able to slide up/down ) freely.If not fix by polishing it to free it up.After the fix just make sure the cap is all the way down then try it,thats if you needed to fix it.