# Anybody?? Got pictures.



## AdamFisk (Jan 30, 2005)

Doing some FL sizing last night and ran into this.

New Lapua brass - first time handling it
Imperial wax - first time using it
Regular cheapo RCBS FL die - brand new, first time using it. I did take it a part and removed all grease, unplugged vent hole, etc.
As you can see, I don't have a lot of experience with these components to compare to. Comparing it to running Rem brass lubed via Hornady One Shot trhough an X die, last nights stuff was A LOT harder going in and out of the die.

In the first picture there is a little "lip" I could see as well as feel with a fingernail right at the neck/shoulder juntion. After trying the die in a bunch of different spots, as well as cleaning and different lube, I backed it out a quarter turn after contact with shellholder and took the second picture. You can clearly see that line around the case neck now, where the die appears to be shaving off just a hair of material. What is causing this? I assume it's mostly cosmetic? I'm FL sizing, shooting, and then switching this stuff over to neck sizing only.


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## Stella1 (Jun 20, 2011)

I have seen that before. On just about every bottleneck case I resize. It's just the die sizing the neck to proper dimensions. I would also venture a guess that the brass in neck area is kind of on the thick side also.


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## Savage260 (Oct 21, 2007)

I had this exact same thing happen with one of my Hornady dies. I sent them pix and they paid for me to ship the die back, fixed the problem(they never told me what they did). It doesn't do that to the brass any more.


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## AdamFisk (Jan 30, 2005)

I've never seen that before, but then again I've never worked with Lapua brass before, or a straight up FL die. All the dies I've used in the past have been RCBS x sizer dies, Rem brass, and have never experienced them sort of scratches before.

I emailed RCBS to see what they have to say.

I measure OD of the necks on a few empty cases and they were all right at or around .336. Loaded a few up and they were now at .338, right where it's supposed to be with Lapua brass. So maybe it's nothing, I don't know.


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## southdakbearfan (Oct 11, 2004)

Maybe a slight final polish issue on the die is what I am thinking.


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## KRAKMT (Oct 24, 2005)

I know many people do but I have stopped full length sizing new brass. Especially premium brass. I have stopped doing it since reading a bunch of articles by gun writer John Barsness.
Here is one of his statements-
"New brass doesn't need to be sized. That's already been done at the factory. You're probably bumping the shoulder back slightly before the first firing, and that's causing your case-stretching problems. Use the fired brass to set you sizing die.

The only thing I ever do to new brass is run the neck over the expander ball of my die to make the neck nice and round, and bullet-pull consistent." His comments off a post from 24hourcampfire

May save you some headache.


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## Seven1 (Mar 30, 2010)

^^^

I've been doing the same thing with new brass since I stared reloading 3 years ago, I just run the expander ball, chamfer and debur. I check length every 10 or so cases to make sure they are in spec. When I have 50 lined up in my tray I prime, charge and seat. I adopted this method after buying a mountain of 22-250 brass, I applied some common sense and never looked back.

I just can't understand why brand new brass needs to be sized, the machine at the factory does it for you. Through normal inspection of new brass it's easy to pick out the rejects, and with the "calibrated eye" I pick out the cases that look long in the neck, and to be honest I've never found one out of spec that wasn't an obvious reject anyway.

Out of thousands of cases I've never found a one that required full length sizing. Every single piece of new brass I've ever checked, the shouder is set back more than it's corresponding Go Gauge, why would I bump the shoulder back even further :huh:


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## People (Jan 17, 2005)

I have this happen after I anneal brass for bolt guns. I get it a little softer than you are supposed to. What has happened is brass is stuck to your die neck area and the expander ball. You will need to polish that extra brass off. Then just use a little more lube when straighten the necks next time.

Chuck Norris once lost the remote, but maintained control of the TV by yelling at it in between bites of his "Filet of Child" sandwich.


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