Hotburn76

I Have been buying up reloading stuff lately since I had some cabelas cards from work and Christmas. I bought the Neck turner that I spoke of in the RCBS customer service thread I started. It seems well built, but the pilot is short and you can wobble the brass real easy and not get a true turn with it. Any of you guys see this with yours or similar turners? Seems like it will work like intended, but how does a guy hold the case that perfect to the center axis with out pushing to one side or the other as he turns it?

gunnermhr

I don't think it should be loose. I have a Forster and you actually need to use an expander mandrel before you turn the neck. Even with the the neck being expanded it fits pretty snug. Maybe try a different Pilot?

bigcountry

I have the sinclair kit, and one thing it is not is sloppy. But they send you a mandrel to actually expand the neck to perfectly fit thier pilot. Bad news is after turning, you have Size the neck again.

Did you try FL sizing first and then see if its tighter? YOu can't have slop when turning necks as it sounds like you know.

handloader1

HotBurn76

Are you sure you are using the right sized reamer for the caliber? Good luck.

Hairtrigger

I would guess, like the others said, the pilot is not the correct size

opieone

Try sizing first

Hotburn76

Will try and answer some of the questions. I did resize and trim all the cases. That was the first thing I did because I did try it with out resizing and it was way off. It seems like it is tight at first, but what I am dealing with is it is easy for at least me to not hold the case true to the axis and then not be doing it right. Also I am not using a reamer since I am turning the outside and not reaming the inside of the case.

So I came up with a different pilot. It is a hair bigger. The original pilot is .200 and most of my cases after resizing are .201 and some are .202 but this is just with a caliper. The new neck is made to .202 and then fine sanded so that the cases go on with a little pressure. Then as you can see in the pic it is the full length of the case and has a pin on the end that goes in the primer hole. This helps hold the case better. So far it works pretty good, but I have not done many cases since I do not have a Ball Mic here yet. Here are some pics, of what I came up with. The new pilot was made from a scrap air cylinder shaft turned on the lathe. I could just have a bad pilot, but I think I have a good idea and am willing to play with it for now.

opieone

It looks like a nice tool.
I turn mine to.017 neck wall thickness, which on my winchester brass is more or less just cleaning the outsides uneven areas.
I use a caliper, I checked a loaded round o.d. at the neck, subtract the bullet dia., and divide by 2.