How do you control neck tension?

[700lr]

Bumping the shoulder will not affect neck tension, just headspace. To increase neck tension you must know a particular measurement associated with your brass and purchase a die such as the Redding type S, bushing style, full sizing die. After you take a measurement you can order your die and the appropriate bushing to reduce neck diameter to whatever you want. If you want to go tighter than the expander ball will allow, you just remove the expander which is typically .001 less than the bullet. Redding provides a replacement for the expander ball if you decide not to use it. The replacement tip holds the decapping pin with no neck expansion.
Measure the neck diameter of a loaded round, order a bushing .001 or .002 smaller than this outside diameter. The bushing fits into the die, and upon sizing will reduce the neck by that amount. For example, if you measure a loaded round at the neck and it measures .336 and you want .002 of tension, order a .334 bushing. Read the die instructions carefully and follow them. Hope this helps.

 

[BountyHunter]

I've been using the Wilson,Neil Jones bushing dies since the 80's. They don't use expanders and just size part of the neck so that is all that gets works if you want alittle more or less tension change bushing size.

I use a body die for sizing when needed and tell the true I don't anneal or plan on starting. One time I figure out cost on new case how many reloads before the case cost nothing to reload most time I get to that point so doesn't bother me to replace that brass.


I load about my first 15yrs with standard type dies and I'm sure if I was still using them I may do things different.

Neil Jones dies size all of the neck. That is due to the fact they also are flared out to bump the shoulders. They are not normal bushing dies.

At the end of the day to have really uniform neck tension for more than one reloading, you will need to aneal, neck turn if nothing more to clean up the neck and use some type of force seating measurement when seating like the K&M arbor press with dial indicator. I have used pin gauges and you will still get different tension measurements that WILL show up at 1000.