Advice on proper bushing for LE Wilson Die .308

[Douglas-001]

I was the lucky winner of this sizing die, bullet seater and case gage from LE Wilson last Friday at our banquet. Following their website video, I need to choose a bushing for sizer based on neck wall thickness which can be calculated 2 seperate ways. OK, that's Doug proof math for sure, but I have at least 20 years of brass of many different makers and I know they differ in neck thickness, as well as loaded (factory) thickness. A quick measurement on some on hand reveals 4 different sizes so far...these are the final results, I have already subtracted .003....

FGMM .335
BLACK HIlLS .330
S&B .327
PPU .333
AVERAGE .331

I am familiar with neck turning but I am not doing that to my brass as I was shooting the M14/M1A for some time. Recall members that I am a service rifle slut....Do I need to start neck turning for proper and accurate use of such a die? Should I go with the average? Should I sell the whole kit? I thought I'd ask for direction-other than getting rid of the .308, insert angry face emoji..- if anyone has experience with such issues. I have included the link to their video if that helps. (The bullet seater will require an arbor press, but they said you could use a mallet as well. Insert thoughtful emoji...) Thank s as always.

Doug

 

[XLR308]

The simplest and cheapest answer assuming you own neck turning equipment would be find which has the thinnest necks and turn all the others to that thickness.
That way you would have to buy fewer bushings and also get more consistent results all around.

 

[Pvt.Donut]

Buy the smallest bushing for the above brass (if you insist on loading random brass together), so 0.327". Then you also need a neck sizing mandrel to punch the necks back to a consistent I.D. this is probably your best bet for loading varying brass makes.

 

[spife7980]

.335-.327=.008 of difference between your largest to your smallest loaded round diameters.

Without the subtractions for neck tension your final measurements would be

FGMM .338
BLACK HIlLS .333
S&B .330
PPU .336


Minus a .308 bullet gets you to

FGMM .030
BLACK HIlLS .025
S&B .022
PPU .028


Divide those in half for the thickness of one side of neck material gets us to

FGMM .015
BLACK HIlLLS .0125
S&B .011
PPU .014

When I was starting the above I was thinking that maybe your measurement technique wasnt consistent between lines but I can believe all of these neck thicknesses.



The simplest method would be to choose a bushing to accommodate your thinnest brass and just live with the overworking of your thicker brass (overworked by the difference between the thinnest and the largest) as suggested already by pvt donut

The most complex is to turn your thicker brass down to match your thinner as suggested by xlr308. The result of that is that when firing the turned necks will grow an additional amount equal to the amount you took off.; making more empty space in the chamber by removing material means that they will move that much further to fill the chamber when fired and then again moved that much again down smaller when sizing. For that reason I personally wouldnt turn neck in any chamber that does not require you to do so in order for you to chamber the brass. Especially not in a semi like your m14/m1a



The biggest allure to a bushing die is that you can just get different bushing to accommodate each type of brass.
If not an individual brand specific bushing for each then maybe just 2 to cover both but to mitigate over under working the extremes, to hedge your bets if you will. The FGMM and the PPU are close so maybe just a .333 bushing for the PPU and live with the FGMM getting worked an extra .002. Then a .227 bushing for the blackhills and S&B to work the s&b the minimal amount and just .003 extra work on the blackhills.




Personally: I would get rid of all that assorted brass and get new matching brass so you dont have to worry about 4 different loads for each line of brass. It would allow you to just get one bushing (peanuts compared to everything else that goes into shooting) and then save all the hassle and effort of quadrupling for the 4 different types of brass.

 

[Douglas-001]

Many thanks for the input. I always use the same brass when working up any loads for my rifles. I used those as examples but as I said, there is a whole lot more in the garage that I didn't want to dig up. I would guess that the majority is BHA, FGMM, Hornady, and Winchester. Loaded factory ammo presently is all over. I would scoop up whatever I stumbled across if I thought it was a fair deal. As I was reviewing the Wilson website, and after speaking to the tech dept., I figured neck turning in my future if I wanted to properly utilize their die.

As all members, so far, have suggested, get the smaller bushing, and then turn any brass down to that. I suppose the prudent thing to do is actually see of what brass I have the most. I wonder if I have been missing out on something lately by not neck turning? I doubt it does much for my service rifles, but the bolt gun may be different, especially if I see a substantial improvement. I presently use RCBS Competition die set that works quite well.

I wasn't aware that neck turning could be needed to chamber a round. I thought it was just to provide equal neck tension. If I do pick up a neck turny thingy, do I really need the Wilson die? I'm beginning to wonder if I should stop giving advice on reloading to anyone, anymore....clearly I am lacking....

 

[spife7980]

Neck turning does help towards making neck tension equal but there are many many variables, turning is just one aspect of controlling tension.
https://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/reloading/neck-tension-not-just-bushing-size/


Since the brass will expand to a given diameter when firing (the chamber diameter that is) removing additional material just increases that amount the remaining brass will travel when fired. That additional movement increases the work done to the brass which in turn hardens it (working brass hardens it, heating it softens it, unlike steel thats the only way to alter the hardness of brass). To reduce that additional work hardening of the brass with turned necks benchresters will have the chamber made with a special reamer than has a smaller neck than normal in order to reduce that extra space/working that would be present in a standard chamber. Many of the benchrest chambers are tight enough that you cant even chamber a factory round thsus requiring that necks be turned. Sometimes converting brass to another chamber (ex 243 to 260) can cause the necks to be too large as well when the thicker shoulder material is moved into the thinner neck material area.


I expect that you do not find an appreciable gain by neck turning in saami chambered rifles. Annealing and avoiding overworking your brass via appropriately sized bushings will do more for you than turning will.



Id find what you have the most of (or really what shoots best that you have ample supply of) and base what you do on that provided you have enough of it. IF you do not have neough I would grab some of this midsouth LC pull down brass, youll have to swage pockets before the second loading since they are crimped primers but since youre already shooting service rifle I imagine you are already somewhat used to that in mil brass. Its cheap enough that you can get enough brass to make one big batch and not have to fuss with all the different variables you encounter with different makes of brass. IMO that would be the proper avenue to pursue over spending 300 bucks on turning tools to feed a half century old rifle system.

 

[XLR308]

The Lapua Palma brass I bought for my 308win is a factory Rem 700 after I cleaned up the necks to .014" which gave a complete clean up and turned into the shoulder I have just used a Lee collet die and it very minimally works the brass. I haven't needed to full length size those 200 cases yet and am on my third firing on the first 100.
I did the same with Nosler brass before the Lapua and had less fliers and more consistent run out measurements after turning. I don't think it made a huge improvement but I have the tools to do it and will take any improvement in consistency I can get since I'm not a world class shooter to begin with.
The biggest benefit to a bushing die is only working the neck of the brass enough to have adequate tension and not overworking it.
If your chamber is generous in the neck I would try and use the brass that has the thickest necks or is the most consistent overall and use the rest for plinking and fouling.

I reread the thread and didn't realize you had such a big variance in neck thickness so adjusted a bit of what I said initially.