neck reaming

J

j mckinnie

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I dont have a lathe.will a .224 neck reamer clean up virgin 220 russian lapua brass as i want to ream cases before expanding to 6mm.i have a wilson trimmer & can get a .224 reamer for it from sinclairs.or should i order a .226 reamer.
Thanks Jim
 
IMO, I have yet to see a neck reamer that did a good job, or good enough for benchrest. Someone did make a neck reamer setup for making like the 22 Waldog but I can't remember who it is. It consisted of a reamer and a guide for the reamer.

Why do you want to ream them? Turning does a much better job if you are trying to reduce neck wall thickness.
 
Expanding will round out the inside diameter of the necks and make them consistant.

Turning the expanded necks (with a properly fitted pilot and a good turner) will make the neck walls concentric and the outside diameters round and consistant.

Reaming the necks will...........make them bigger. Hmmmm........

-Dave-:)
 
Dave

Reaming before expanding i want to cut the imperfections of not hope the expander will do it
 
j mckinnie said:
Reaming before expanding i want to cut the imperfections of not hope the expander will do it
Click to expand...

Jim,

A reamer will cause more imperfections than it will fix. The brass is ductile, and expanding it up from .22 to 6mm will iron any small inconsistancies......and.........don't forget that Lapua is pretty much without imperfections to start with.

With all of that said, they're your cases.........ream away. I guess 98.7% of the PPC shooters could be wrong.

-Dave-:)
 
Jim

I think you are wasting a lot of shooting time here. But it's not my place to tell you how to make your BR brass.

In order to inside ream the necks you will first have to run them over a mandrel to remove any gross inperfections, such as neck dents. Use whatever mandrel is appropriate to the reamer that you will be using. You could then ream them to remove any remaining imperfections (which I don't think you will find) and then expand the necks to 6mm and outside turn the necks to the desired size.

Ray
 
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You can do this, but it's not as simple as you might think. Joel Pendergraft made me a reaming die -- the idea was mine, but the machining skill his . . .

We started off with a Wilson blank seater die, where you have that nice reamed pilot hole. Ran the resize reamer in, so the case would stick. On the other end, we bored the die to take a hardened, ground pilot bushing, same size as a chucking reamer.

The bottom if the die was threaded to put in a press. The case was formed & then fireformed without a bullet. After fireforming, it was run up into the die and inside reamed. The hole in the neck is now running true to the centerline of the case, but the outside of the neck may be off, so the final step is outside turning.

But this was for a big, honking 8x68 case necked down to .308 with the shoulder pushed back. I set it up for an"N" reamer (.304), & there was still brass left to turn off on the outside.

It worked well. Over 50 percent of the cases had zero runout on the final neck done this way. Those that were a bit off came out so because, I think, I used a "removable" pilot bushing, which didn't support the reamer as well, & I got in a hurry reaming the neck. I (well, Joel) replaced this with a regular hardened, ground pilot which fits the reamer well over it's run.

The key to all this is, I think, a way to hold the case on it's centerline, & also ream on centerline, which is what that tool did. Doing it any way that doesn't meet these two is apt to do more harm than good.

And remember, once that is done, you have to keep that hole on center, which means outside turning.
 
Hi Jim. Here's something you may want to try before deciding on cutting the inside of the necks:

Take a 220R and expand it to 6mm, cut the case off about 1/4" below the shoulder and do a cerrosafe cast of the inside of the neck. You can tip the case up on it's mouth and pour the cerrosafe in. Now you can measure the cerrosafe for any neck i.d. 'issues'.

I've never done this with a 220R expanded to 6mm but have checked 30BR cases after being necked up from 6mm. Uniforming of the neck i.d. is something that I now do to all my 30BR cases before outside turning.

If you do decide the neck i.d.'s need attention, I'd suggest doing it after expanding and before outside turning.

Let us know what you find, okay? Good shootin'. :) -Al
 
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Check with Jim Carstensen

Jim makes a neat die for the shortened .22 PPC. It is made from a shortened .22/.250 die. One can trim off .100 from the brass and then run into this die....which has a hardened top for reaming. It is supplied with a reamer and all one has to do is run the case into the die, then ream. After the reaming one needs to turn the outside to appropriate thickness. So what does the reaming accomplish?? Since the shortened PPC uses much of the shoulder area to form the new neck, the reaming helps prevent the formation of the dreaded doughnut. It works very slick. Good shooting...James
 
Thanks MocknLA

Do you have an email address for Mr Carstensen
cheers Jim
 
I ream;

j mckinnie said:
I dont have a lathe.will a .224 neck reamer clean up virgin 220 russian lapua brass as i want to ream cases before expanding to 6mm.i have a wilson trimmer & can get a .224 reamer for it from sinclairs.or should i order a .226 reamer.
Thanks Jim
Click to expand...

Some of the cases I make the way you inquired about. I have a 30-284x1.650. I cut the cases off right at the shoulder - case body junction. It is at this point that I would prefer to ream if I had he right reamer to do it. I then use a Neil Jones forming die that used several bushings to form the shoulder and neck from here. After the third stage, I think it is, I use a Wilson trimmer and Wilson neck reamer to take material out of the inside of the neck. It works well and gives me uniform necks to finish turn; haven't lost one yet. I use a Wilson 284 case holder to hold the cases while I am doing the reaming.

Reaming this way will take lots of materiel in a rush so be careful !
 
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