Lee neck resizer

[Ryan S Albright]

Is any body using this? I am not getting tight enough neck tension. It seemed to be doing well. but now I am having to go back to full length resizing. I Have annealed the necks on the brass. should I sand down the ball that goes in to the neck?

[YoteSmoker]

I've only used the Lee neck sizing collet die for my 308. Are you asking about the collet die or something else?

[Silverfox]

If Lee collet dies are what you are inquiring about, they were discussed in some detail on this board near the end of August. Here's a link to that thread:

http://www.204ruger.com/forum/viewtopic ... Collet+die

[visigoth]

You can increase the neck tension by polishing the mandrel from the die, or you can buy one from Lee that has been polished down for $5. I just did this on my .204 die, and its very easy.

1) Take the die apart, and remove the mandrel from the holder. From the factory, they are designed to provide 0.001" of neck tension.
2) Put the mandrel into a drill motor (I put the decapping end into the chuck of the drill).
3) Fire up your drill, and "polish" the mandrel with 400 grit wet/dry paper.
4) Do this with moderate pressure for ca. 30 seconds or so and then measure the mandrel. From the factory, my mandrel measured 0.202 +/- 0.0005. I polished it until it measured 0.2015, which was just enough to give me the neck tension I wanted. I finished it up with a little 600/1000 grit.

When polishing the mandrel, don't go over the end of the rod, where it has been peened (looks like a little mushroom), since this is what keeps the mandrel from dropping through the holder.

If you mess it up, don't sweat it since Lee sells these mandrels for $4.