Neck Bushings and the importance of de-burring case necks.

[wboregon]

So when I did my first go around and formed my 338 edge brass I got a little over excited and didn't deburr the inside of the case necks (I'm used to norma brass and typically don't do any brass prep)

Everything sized down great and neck tension seemed JUST RIGHT. I was using a rather large bushing for 338 edge, but I was also using brass that should have had a thicker neck after forming. so everything seemed great.

Skip ahead a few months and I went to reload my now once fired brass, after a nice wet tumble, I decide to do a light deburr on the case necks and ran them through the sizing die.

And now I have no neck tension, I can push a bullet in by hand, My best guess is there was a little bit of a burr on the new cases and that burr gave me enough neck tension for the first firing, but after tumbling in SS pins and deburring there is now nothing there to hold onto the bullet. Now i get to wait on smaller bushings to ship

Just posting this as a TIL/PSA about brass prep

 

[Pdvdh]

I pulled about a 1,200 bullets from my .223 reloads ~3yrs ago. Was using a RCBS collet style bullet puller. I pulled these bullets so I could HBN coat them and then reseat them. It was winter and I had time to spare. I came to one case I could hardly pull the bullet from the case neck. I had to tighten down the collet so firmly it deformed the bullet. When I examined the bearing surface of the bullet, it was heavily scarred. Looked at the case it came from and realized it hadn't been deburred. Somehow I missed deburring one of ~1,300 Lake City cases after trimming it down to length. Not a terrible track record of my reloading practice and performance.

But I would not want to do that with a large game, long range hunting round. Pretty sure it would cause the bullet to strike to a different POI. And a guy would be left wondering what went wrong...

 

[243winxb]

Brass spring back is outward with a bushing.

If an expander is used, spring back is inward.

Brass has a memory.

I neck turned some brass, the bushing i was using was ok for a few loadings. Then neck tension got loose. Had to use a .001" smaller bushing. I don't anneal brass.