.260 neck bushing, help please

[Milligan]

Hi all,

My first post and I am asking for help, very poor show and I am sorry but I am in desperate need of help!

First off, great site. I've read through lots of threads on this topic and there are some knowledgeable folk on here.

I have a .260 rem which I use a Redding Type s neck sizer for.
My lapua brass loaded has an OD of .294 and I have .291, .292 and .293 bushes.

.291 without the button gives reasonable results.
.292 with the button is rubbish, but still has an OD after sizing of .292 so I'm thinking the button is not expanding anything really and there is only light resistance on exit/up stroke.

Question is, do you think I should try a .290" bush i.e. who has had good results with 4 thou of tension?

Thanks in advance,

Will

 

[J E Custom]

Hi all,

My first post and I am asking for help, very poor show and I am sorry but I am in desperate need of help!

First off, great sight. I've read through lots of threads on this topic and there are some knowledgeable folk on here.

I have a .260 rem which I use a Redding Type s neck sizer for.
My lapua brass loaded has an OD of .294 and I have .291, .292 and .293 bushes.

.291 without the button gives reasonable results.
.292 with the button is rubbish, but still has an OD after sizing of .292 so I'm thinking the button is not expanding anything really and there is only light resistance on exit/up stroke.

Question is, do you think I should try a .290" bush i.e. who has had good results with 4 thou of tension?

Thanks in advance,

Will

Normally you would go with .291 bushing if the loaded size is .294 to get around .003 thousandths
sizing.

Some brass has more spring back and you have to go .001 smaller.

After you size one, mic. it and see what size it realy is and this may help you decide on a bushing.

The bushing dies dont use an expander ball so the up stroke should be light. What you are feeling is the spring back.

If you try a .090 bushing and it works you will be fine until you anneal your brass and then you
may have to go back to the .091 bushing.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Milligan]

Thanks for that, I suppose there is no harm in trying.

To be clear on the button; the dies I have came with an expander ball and an alternate screw on piece which just holds the decapping pin.

I've tried it with the expander and .292 - which is when things go wrong.

 

[Mikecr]

Yeah atleast Redding have expander buttons.
Milligan what do the fired necks measure?

Also, it seems to me that a sized neck OD of .292(2thou under loaded OD) would provide plenty of grip.

 

[backwoods83]

As Mikecr mentioned you need to mic the neck of a fired round and size it down no more than .004-.005", for example I have a 6.5x284 with a .297 neck depending on what I'm loading I use .293 and .294 bushings if you sizing more than .005" then your working your brass to much.

 

[Milligan]

The fired stuff comes out and .297" I think, but don't have it to hand.

Do you think there is a possibility then that the expander ball is causing problems? i.e. out of round etc

 

[backwoods83]

Mic the expander all the way around, probably around .263", you may wanna try to use a standard redding neck die for the 260 that should give you a .292" and that's as tight as it ever needs to be if your chamber has a .297 neck, sounds normal .297, .298 depends on who done it but that's about right.

 

[Milligan]

I have the normal Redding Die and that squeezes down to .288 (without the expander) which is waaaay too tight for this brass in my book, which is why I went with the Type S.

This has been a frustrating process....

 

[backwoods83]

Try putting the expander back in, if that does work you can try to hone the die slightly.

 

[Mikecr]

Milligan, it seems like we're missing some info on this. What is your reaasoning for the .292 OD not being sized enough?

 

[Limbic]

I take the expander balls off of all of my bushing dies. My lapua brass is thicker than the .243 lapua I was using. Anyway. I load my rounds to mag length so I don't worry too much about NT. A thousandth is a thousandth is a thousandth but it sure seems like .001NT on this 260 holds the bullets better than the .001 on my BRX.

Also I will let my freshly sized brass sit out overnight just to see how much it springs back over a 24h period. sometimes it is a thou or two.

 

[Milligan]

Milligan, it seems like we're missing some info on this. What is your reaasoning for the .292 OD not being sized enough?

When I've tried the .292 the results are awful. But as I said, I've been using the .292 with the expander ball, which still gives me an OD of .292 hence my comment that the expander doesn't appear to be doing much, if anything.

I've had better results with the .291 bush without th expander but not as good as I'd like, so back to the query of whether I should try the .290 bush...

Does that make sense?

 

[Mikecr]

the results are awful

WTH does that mean?

 

[Milligan]

WTH does that mean?

Strung out about 4" or 5". Just bad.