Tell me about mandrels? Use of, pro & con

Alex Wheeler in his thread "Keeping it simple with reloading", Says he uses bushing dies not a mandrel to set neck tension.


I guess there's many ways to skin a cat. But which is best?
 
.002 is probably a minimum.

Don't be afraid to try a lot more, like .004-.005
Some guns really respond
Yes I saw a video with Alex Wheeler talking about how one of his loads shot well at .005. Just another rabbit hole to go down lol. I think at some point I am going to do some testing and see how much difference it makes. Of course if you believe in statistics you probably need 25-30 data points to eliminate normal variation. Thats another rabbit hole.
 
So standard practice with bushing dies is to get a bushing .002 smaller than a loaded round. So if you run a mandrel seems like you would lose some of that. How are ya'll picking a bushing size?
Bear in mind that "good" brass behaves differently than cheap brass. So does once fired vs 5 times fired brass. So does annealed brass vs brass that hasn't been annealed. I use a .002 - .003 smaller bushing to start with. And that's where it usually ends up. If the brass sits for a while before I load it I'll run a pin gauge in the neck to check the ID. Sometimes I'll do that after I run a mandrel through it. I use an AMP press to seat bullets and that tells me a lot about how much neck tension there is and other things that make a round inconsistent. Do you have to do that with a hunting round? I don't know. I like the process.
 
Bear in mind that "good" brass behaves differently than cheap brass. So does once fired vs 5 times fired brass. So does annealed brass vs brass that hasn't been annealed. I use a .002 - .003 smaller bushing to start with. And that's where it usually ends up. If the brass sits for a while before I load it I'll run a pin gauge in the neck to check the ID. Sometimes I'll do that after I run a mandrel through it. I use an AMP press to seat bullets and that tells me a lot about how much neck tension there is and other things that make a round inconsistent. Do you have to do that with a hunting round? I don't know. I like the process.
I also was listening to a pod cast with Alex where he indicated he did not anneal. He said his rifle shot better without annealing. His theory is that annealing softens the brass and makes it harder for him to get the required neck tension or something to that effect. I found that really interesting.
 
I can understand why a mandrel might be better than the ball you pull back through the neck after depriming and sizing. But why do you guys think a mandrel is better than bushing dies? One sets neck tension by outside compression and the other by inside expansion.

I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade from the way I learned 60 years ago.
 

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