request: advice for best concentricity

[giterdone]

Rick..... Drilled vs. punched primer pockets? Dont you mean flash holes? Also I have read somewhere (recently) that they are no longer drilling flash holes, but are not punching them like everyone else.

[Rick in Oregon]

Duh....yep, did mean flash holes. (But they're IN the primer pocket, right? )

Have not heard anything about an alternative method of drilling vs. punching. Maybe EDM or similar method? This is new.

[bow shot]

...been away for a tad, trying to get close to a whitetail. Well...two squirrells so far to show for my efforts.

Ok, I now have a forster bench rest seater on the way from Graf and Sons. I probably cannot just run my poor concentricity rounds through the forster now that they are already seated, can I?

Some are out all the way to 0.005" TIR on the olgive, thought the necks (after seating) are still w/i 0.0015"

Sure would hate to disect 80 these to reseat...

[bow shot]

Ok, used the forster seater with 25 rounds of the Horandy brass. Getting max. .0025" TIR on the finished product (short of the olgive on the bullet). Much better, pretty much matching the TIR of the empty brass, may be .001" over that. Makes sense to me.

I've been a bit to hasty in measuring neck wall thickness, sized brass TIR and finished round bullet TIR, and this was a small batch, so I'll refrain from arriving at much of a conclusion for now. When I free up some brass (or purchase some) I'll try to "publish" a study on this post... if I don't forget, that is.

I'm thinking Nosler brass vs a good neck turner in the future...

[bpratl]

I have been following your threads on .204 runout and accuracy as I have the same savage rifle and caliper.
I eliminate half of my runout by using a Lee collet die but; I was still getting between .002" and .005" runout. I believe that it is due to my seater die and I have tried both a Lee and a RCBS dies without change. I do measure and turn the necks for uniform thickness which does help.
To adjust out my run out I fabricated the following fixture that I posted on another site. It worked for me.

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/sho ... ght=runout

[giterdone]

Bowshot...You may find that the Nosler Brass is a wee bit short in length. Also the Nosler brass that I have (.22-250) it appears that the inside uniforming of the flash holes was done a bit excessively. Noslers brass will appeal to those reloaders who dont have/take the time to properly prep their factory brass for serious shooting. It is a lot of work, so I cant find fault with anyone not wanting to go thru the motions.

[bow shot]

bpratl, beautiful tool!! I'm currently using the Lee collet, and have had very good reduction in runout (vs RCBS full length sizer...may be I was using that wrong??) also.

giterdone, I hear that observation on the Nosler regularly. Do you know ifthey are actuall below trim length?

I recently ruined a bunch of perfeclty good Hornady brass over-trimming, so maybe Noslers will just the thing for me, LOL!!

[Silverfox]

bow shot--I have 200 factory second Nosler brass in .204 Ruger from Nosler Lot #CE12B1-1 and those casings measure 1.833" to 1.8345" in length. I have been told that is the length Nosler wants them to be, up to a maximum of 1.835" or .005" short of Hornady's case trim to length. I would have preferred to have the casings >=1.840" instead of the 1.833" to 1.8345" length. The necks on the .204 Ruger casings are pretty short to begin with at the 1.840" trim-to length.

Like RIO mentioned a while back, the casings are pretty uniform in neck wall thickness, ranging from .0112" to .0125" on some random casings I measured. I probably won't bother to turn the necks on them before fire forming them and may not turn them after that either. I'll be using them in my new super match grade Pac-Nor barrel once I get it chambered and installed on my Savage 12VLP. I'll be using a reamer that is pretty close to the dimensions of the one RIO has used for one of his .204 Rugers. The barrel is a 1 in 11" twist and has 3 grooves and just a tad bit bigger OD than the factory Savage barrel.

I also weighed all of my casings and they were very consistent in weight. Out of the 200 casings, 183 of them weigh from 99.1 gr. and 100.1 gr. The extreme spread for lightest weight to heaviest is 1.66 gr.

For the difference in price between the Nosler and WW brass, I still prefer to stick with the WW brass as of right now. I find that the effort I put into any project I get involved in makes me appreciate the end result even more so I don't mind the time it takes to prep brass for my rifles--it is just part of the pleasure of reloading and shooting for me. Besides, I have more time than money, so it's a good way to entertain myself on the cheap

[JBinMontana]

I've done alot of reloading, but you guy's are giving out some great information here...... I LOVE IT!

I will be getting set up for the .204 so this is so very nice

[jo191145]

Unless you have the tools already and love brass prep Nosler is a great deal. Yes its a tad short. I've had three different lots so far and they were all the same. Right around 1.834ish right out of the box. Of course they're already trimmed so that accounts for some of the short length. Obviously Nosler must set up thier trimming machines to quarentee every piece of brass is fully trimmed and square.
Never had a problem missing that .005". I give em a slight VLD chamfer and brass prep is done. Consistency of lots is excellent from what I've seen.

I've had excellent Win brass also after doing the prep. I've had Win brass I eventually chucked in the garbage because of .004 neck variation thicknesses. You can turn off that discrepency but it will never shoot as good as it should even after its gone.

[giterdone]

jo191145 makes some very good observations about choosing brass and Nosler may be the right brass for you (JBinMontana.) I just sorted my last 300 WW cases by neck wall thickness, and out of the 300 there were only 150 that the neck thickness variation was LESS than .002" and 80 that measured between .002" and .0025" measured with a Sinclair neck thickness tool. I read somewhere that .003" and below is the number to shoot for; But for my .204 Savage 12 LRPV I want to use the 230 cases that were consistent in thickness for long range (400-600yds) work (no neck turning required); and save (neck turn the other 43 keepers), and pitch the 27 that were .004" or over. I will use the 43 that were .003"-.0035" for my .204 T/C Encore to use for shots less than 400 yards. The point here is WW brass as good as it is must still be sorted by neck wall thickness if you want to shoot bugholes.
"It is highly unlikely that the most accurate cartridge, will find its way into the most accurate rifle, to be shot by the most accurate shooter."

[bow shot]

I did some casual measurements last night (while watching Andy Opie and Barney) and put the anvil mic and runout indicator on various batches of my Hornady brass. Here's what I found (it should be noted that these are rather casual observations, not based on large sample sizes):

1) Out of the rilfe chamber, the TIR of the fired brass is under 0.001"
2) The neck wall thickness variation of the brass ranges up to 0.0025"
3) After neck sizing with the Lee Collet die, the TIR now ranges up to .003", which is very close to the neck wall thickness variation, plus a tad.
4) After seating with the Forster die, the bullet TIR (just short of the olgive) very closely mirrors the TIR of the necksized brass, again, adding perhaps another "tad", 0.0005".

So it seems, as the wise ones have predicted, that (ideally) firing perfects the OD of the neck (assuming a perfect-ish rifle chamber), and then neck sizing perfects the ID of the neck, while pushing the wall thickness variation to the OD of the neck... where it is now in a convenient place to be trimmed off.

[Rick in Oregon]

Viola! By jove, I think you've got it mate!

Your summation is spot-on in all regards. Once an understanding of the process has been gained, it's easier to produce outstanding quality brass cases even from domestic sources. It just takes time, patience, the proper tools and knowledge.

[bow shot]

Thanks kindly RIO

[giterdone]

Bow shot...The expander is what pushes the wall thickness variation to the O.D. of the neck where it can be neck-turned off. O.S. Neck sizing does not perfect the I.D. of the neck, only the O.D. (example.. using a bushing die sans expander) Fired cases only tell you if your chamber is concentric. BTW..I should have pointed out that the WW brass I measured was unfired sized new brass.