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Gunsmithing .260 Remington fat neck reamer for LC Brass

flyfisherman246

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Minuteman
May 26, 2017
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I have piles of LC, BH, and Federal .308 brass. I hate to launch lapua .260 brass all over the country side with an ar10. I ran all three types of brass through a FL sizing die to turn them into .260 and I am getting about a .296 neck. My reamer is .297 neck (as are most). Has anyone made a fat neck reamer specifically designed to be used with no neck turn .308 brass like this? By the way, I refuse to turn necks especially for a gas gun where I'm going to loose it anyway. What would be the recommended neck thickness for a gas gun shooting this brass, .301 neck? What would happen if you shot normal .260 brass which has a much thinner neck through a chamber like this?
 
I tried this years ago, I was swayed away from the idea. But I have a thread somewhere on the hide asking the same.

My idea was 123smks behind varget since of the reduced case capacity of LC brass.
 
Turning necks does suck, your best bet would be to either call up Manson, or PT&G and have them spec you a chamber reamer with wider neck dia. for running a simple necked-down .308 Win case. Run one in your die, load a bullet in it, then measure with calipers the outside diameter of the neck from side-to-side with a bullet loaded into it. Give them that dimension, and they'll adjust the reamer neck size from there. Then make it, and send it to you. I do like this idea... I also have TONS of .308 Win brass from 20+ years of shooting the .308 Win, and I also have a .260 Rem that I use Lapua .260 Rem brass in, but it would be nice to use my surplus LC 7.62x51 NATO brass for .260 Rem if I wanted to...
 
Turning necks does suck, your best bet would be to either call up Manson, or PT&G and have them spec you a chamber reamer with wider neck dia. for running a simple necked-down .308 Win case. Run one in your die, load a bullet in it, then measure with calipers the outside diameter of the neck from side-to-side with a bullet loaded into it. Give them that dimension, and they'll adjust the reamer neck size from there. Then make it, and send it to you. I do like this idea... I also have TONS of .308 Win brass from 20+ years of shooting the .308 Win, and I also have a .260 Rem that I use Lapua .260 Rem brass in, but it would be nice to use my surplus LC 7.62x51 NATO brass for .260 Rem if I wanted to...
Wouldn't you need a seating die reamed for that
neck diameter also?
 
Wouldn't you need a seating die reamed for that
neck diameter also?
Not if you're using bushing dies. Measure it out, and order a bushing that's 0.002" smaller. Good to go. 👍🏼 And if you're using a standard honed seating die, no you should be fine, my Redding Master Hunter die set (29531) has a competition seater with a spring and a micrometer on top, and my 2 dummy rounds were made from Federal .308 Win brass with both Nosler and Berger 6.5mm bullets, and they worked just fine in it... And the FL and Neck=sizer dies worked perfectly to size it down... However...Your's might be different and your neck-sizing and FL sizing dies, might not work. I have not tried to chamber them in my rifle, because I don't need to, I need the dummy rounds for quick setup with my micrometer seating die with different brands and weight bullets. It's a lot faster setup than mic'ing that shit out every single time and dialing it in for setup. Run the dummy, make your first REAL round, check it wit the calipers, if it's all good, start running them. I check each one regardless, but that's because I'm a bit anal-retentive about the level of precision that goes into my handloads. Even my plinking rounds. 👍🏼
 
Not if you're using bushing dies. Measure it out, and order a bushing that's 0.002" smaller. Good to go. 👍🏼 And if you're using a standard honed seating die, no you should be fine, my Redding Master Hunter die set (29531) has a competition seater with a spring and a micrometer on top, and my 2 dummy rounds were made from Federal .308 Win brass with both Nosler and Berger 6.5mm bullets, and they worked just fine in it... And the FL and Neck=sizer dies worked perfectly to size it down... However...Your's might be different and your neck-sizing and FL sizing dies, might not work. I have not tried to chamber them in my rifle, because I don't need to, I need the dummy rounds for quick setup with my micrometer seating die with different brands and weight bullets. It's a lot faster setup than mic'ing that shit out every single time and dialing it in for setup. Run the dummy, make your first REAL round, check it wit the calipers, if it's all good, start running them. I check each one regardless, but that's because I'm a bit anal-retentive about the level of precision that goes into my handloads. Even my plinking rounds. 👍🏼
I didn't think about sizing, but bushings solves thicker necks. Thinking about seating dies a little more, if you don't crimp the die doesn't touch the neck.
 
Look at Forster web page

 
Problem with those is that they scratch the neck up pretty bad and outside and inside turning is still a ass pain to do.
 
I generally loathe reloading but turning necks surprisingly doesn’t bother me.
With a drill and 21st century turner you can blast through them pretty quickly.
 
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For the same reason as the OP, I converted a bunch of LC 7.62X51 brass to .260 Rem. I do have to turn the necks, but keeping the output to 25-50 at a sitting, I processed a couple hundred cases pretty painlessly.

I tried a gadget that was supposed to drop the brass nearby, but it blew off the AR-10 with the first shot.

At least I now can go through a PRS match without whinging about all that lost Lapua brass.