List your reloading steps.

goody523 · Post by **goody523** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:41 am

I was looking at Reddings web site after reading your response and I see that they have competition neck sizing dies that use different bushings. Would it be a safe bet that you need to buy a number of different bushings that fall into the range specified for your caliber and then attempt to use the one that sizes it the least, but still groups well in your gun?

At the end of the day (accuracy aside) what kind of advantage am I going to achieve using a bushing die in terms of case life? Are we talking about getting 7 reloads instead of 5 or something in that category, or is it something far greater?

Thanks as always for sharing your knowledge.

skipper · Post by **skipper** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:36 am

goody523

It's not that simple. Getting more reloads out of your brass before you retire it depends on several factors. What we're talking about here is keeping your brass as unchanged as possible after it's been fire formed to your rifle. The only thing you want to do is size enough of the neck to support the bullet down to it's base working the brass as little as possible. Those fire formed cases are custom fitted to your rifle and if your chamber is truly concentric, your custom fitted brass is now concentric also. You don't want to go sizing the body or shoulder if you don't have to.

Bushing sizes are easy to calculate. Add twice the neck thickness of your brass to the bullet diameter and subtract .001-.002 for some neck tension and you're there. If your brass is .013 thick then it would look like this: .013 + .013 + .204 = .230 now subtract .001 - ,002 for neck tension and that would be a .229 or .228 bushing. You can also just throw your calipers across a loaded round's neck and subtract 1 or 2 thousandths. I would suggest that you get several bushings to cover all the variations in brass thickness. I personally own all the bushings from .224 - .229. As long as you don't buy the tungsten disulfide bushings they are pretty reasonable. I can load for pretty much any neck thickness the manufacturers throw at me. I can also vary the neck tension to whatever I like.

As for case life your best bet is to work the brass as little as possible. If you already anneal you are ahead of the game. Even if you anneal your rifle's chamber neck might be slightly oversized allowing your case necks to over expand which can lead to neck splitting. Once you fire form your brass, trim them all to the same length and just neck size. You only need to size the neck down to where the base of the seated bullet will be. The unsized portion of the neck will center the cartridge in the chamber. When the brass becomes work hardened, annealing the case neck and shoulder will extend its life. Please, remember to check your brass for signs of case head separation. When in doubt, toss it out.

goody523 · Post by **goody523** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:09 pm

So instead of setting up the neck sizer as described with die, you back it off unitl it only sizes to the length that the bullet is seated? Can you actually see the difference on the neck where it stopped so you can figure this out?

WHISTLEPIG · Post by **WHISTLEPIG** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:18 pm

The amount of neck sizing is set by how much free float the bushing has. By screwing the top of the bushing retainer up or down the amount of sizing is adjusted. It is very simple.
Yes, it is very easy to see and measure the amount of sizing.

skipper · Post by **skipper** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:20 pm

You can see it if your eyes are better than mine. I have a magnifying light on my bench. You can measure it with the calipers also.

Rick wrote me a PM. He said that the bushings are actually coated with tungsten nitride. There I go again with the wrong chemicals. I just copied what it said on the package. Anyhow those bushings are more expensive that the plain steel ones. I have some of both.

If you haven't figured out by now, let me give it to you straight. Fact No. 1, the more you reload the more gadgets you will find that you just can't live without. Before you know it you will have a collection of junk that you no longer use. Do it right. Spend the money the first time. What I mean is to do the research and buy quility equipment so you don't have to buy everything twice. You will need a bushing neck sizing die sooner or later. Fact No. 2, the prices go up every day. Hurry, man, hurry. Buy quality and only buy once.

goody523 · Post by **goody523** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:56 pm

I am with you on the "buy quality the first time" train. My issue with reloading was that I was trying to research too much without actually doing it and I came to a point of "analysis paralysis" - an affliction many technical people I work with suffer from horribly. So I went ahead and bought what I thought made sense and dove in. Now that I have my feet wet the discussions make a lot more sense and I understand what I need and don't need better.

I have also quickly come to the realization that trying to rationalize reloading from a cost standpoint vs factory ammo is a losing proposition. I have no idea what my cost per round is vs factory, but I am confident the math is quite ugly. I think this is akin to determining how much venison costs per pound if you add up all your gear, hunting land, gas, 4x4's, etc.. I don't care to do the math on that either as I'm afraid the result might send me into cardiac arrest!