necks too long, too short??

Z

zeke mccune

Member
Hello All:

I finally got my rifles out after about a two decade layoff and discovered an interesting fact about my ammunition. I checked my .222 Remington cases and they were longer than what the maximum length that the reloading manuals specified by about .020" These are new cases that were only loaded and fired once. I know about cases that are too long have a propensity to get crimped in the throat and cause high pressures. I checked for this and found no evidence of crimping. The gun is a Sako Vixen that shot very accurately despite the long cases.

However, the 6PPC and 30x47 cases were too short by about .020".

Are new cases made that are longer than SAMMI standards? When I fired them, they made very small groups. I will trim back to .010" less than maximum length before I reload them.

I guess that cases that are too short pose no problems to accuracy as long as they are all the same. These short cases shot very well years ago.

Perhaps I am overthinking this situation but...

Suggestions and/or comments?

Be well,

zeke
 
Necks too long,too short??.........

I'd see if a new bullet would slide easily in and out of the case neck. If so,I'd just even up the case lengths. Most chamber lengths will give you a little extra.
If the bullet is snug/tight,then I'd trim the cases back uniformly. Good luck....be safe.
 
Buy the sinclair neck checking slug.
Do not cut off good brass till you KNOW
what the trim length is for YOUR rifle.
Specs is specs, but hand loading can be a lot
closer.
Too short you just have to live with.
 
Get the actual "measured chamber length" before you trim any brass. Chambers are usually around .020 longer that the max trim length. Know that measurement and you may never need to trim.
 
Strip your bolt. Take a case that has been fired in your Rifle and chamber the fired case. Remove it and take a good look at the end of the neck. If the case is too long for your chamber, you should be able to see some evidence of interference.
 
jackie schmidt said:
Strip your bolt. Take a case that has been fired in your Rifle and chamber the fired case. Remove it and take a good look at the end of the neck. If the case is too long for your chamber, you should be able to see some evidence of interference.
Click to expand...

Is it possible to get an "extra" long case and try to chamber it? If it won't chamber then keep shortening it by say 10 thousandth increments until it does chamber easily. Measure the trimmed case and then load a round, fire it and see if it grows. I expect that case neck tension/bullet pull might affect growth some. Once I get cases trimmed to length, I size the neck with no expander ball and let the seated bullet do the expanding.
 
IMO Ya's guys need to lissen to retired on this one :)

Them little neck slugs is good juju, altho I've used a reversed fb bullet betimes.....

Take it from one who HAS crimped necks onto bullets f'real. And experienced the pressure excursions and frustration.
 
alinwa said:
IMO Ya's guys need to lissen to retired on this one :)

Them little neck slugs is good juju, altho I've used a reversed fb bullet betimes.....

Take it from one who HAS crimped necks onto bullets f'real. And experienced the pressure excursions and frustration.
Click to expand...

Long necks have never been an issue for me. Pretty much load only for .25-06 and related 6.5 x 06 cases. Sounds like good advice tho if one wants to be on the safe side.
 
There's no good reason to have case necks as long as possible. You can't make your groups smaller with a particular neck length. I prefer that my cases be the same length but that's about it. Sure, you can create cases that fit the chamber to the finest degree but your groups won't get smaller.

Too long is bad news...too short is no news at all.
 
brickeyee said:
A reversed bullet is still to small in diameters to detect neck length.
It will find the start of rifling.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing this was in reference to me... and you're right, especially as regards factory chambers/necks. It's been so long since I messed with this I'd forgotten that when I used reversed bullets I chose 6MM 65gr Bench Rest bullets with a large pressure ring and tapped them on the table before using them in a chamber with no freebore. This particular chamber was a 6BR .000 freebore cut to 1.550 by someone else and I didn't know it...... I did get a usable dimension, enough that I called the gunsmith and asked "what length is this chamber??!!"

BAD information on my part, thanks for the catch.
 
alinwa said:
I'm guessing this was in reference to me... and you're right, especially as regards factory chambers/necks. It's been so long since I messed with this I'd forgotten that when I used reversed bullets I chose 6MM 65gr Bench Rest bullets with a large pressure ring and tapped them on the table before using them in a chamber with no freebore. This particular chamber was a 6BR .000 freebore cut to 1.550 by someone else and I didn't know it...... I did get a usable dimension, enough that I called the gunsmith and asked "what length is this chamber??!!"

BAD information on my part, thanks for the catch.
Click to expand...

Having a metal lathe available lets you do all sorts of things.

I use brass rod and turn a plug down for any chamber I need to measure.
Use it in a Hornady headspace gauge and measure away.

I have made (and sold) a number of very nice pocket door locks made out of solid brass with jest a single spring.

They rotate out a nice hook to grab a cross bar on the door stop.
The commercial ones are ugly modern and take a chunk from the door stile.
 
Long can make guns disassemble themselves if a bullet is badly pinched by the case.

Short can produce low neck tension and result in anything from poor accuracy to disassembly if the bullet moves and stops when trying to engrave on rthe rifling.
 
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