Reloading for longrange neck size or full size?

[Crazymonkey]

What's you formula for resizing your brass and why?neck size to not stress your brass or just resize for uniform cases

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Both for me but mostly full length and anneal every other load. 

[briant_az]

Fl every time. I've done both in the past but now I just full length size. However, if @lancetkenyon told me to neck size, I would only do that😂.

For what its worth, there are lots of YouTube videos on the subject. For a hunting cartridge I think having the added sizing is a good thing. You never know what's going to happen in the field. You might need that extra added tolerance that full length sizing provides.  

[Crazymonkey]

Lance is a good guy and super helpful with all my questions .

[MMACFIVE]

For hunting I like a 0.002” shoulder set back to a slight crush fit. I never FL resize bottle neck rifle rounds. 
 

eventually with neck sizing you’ll have to at least partially FL size to get it back into spec. 
 

i don’t believe hardly any competitive shooter neck size any more. 

[CouesPursuit]

A couple years ago, I was attempting to reload a neck-sized cartridge (with a few firings) on a second coyote that was running in and it failed to chamber, costing me a dog and even worse, educating it.

After what I learned here and on other forums, especially for all hunting rifles, neck sizing is really only used on virgin brass brass for me now to make sure all pieces have the same neck tension and consistency before their first firing. After that, I have adopted the .002" shoulder bump method. 

Fast forward to this past year, I had a mag drop out in the dirt while setting up on a lion. After 2 lungs full of air to blow out the big stuff and likely thanks to the shoulder bump, I was able to still chamber a round and kill the lion. I also shot a .25" group last week with neck sized virgin brass even with headspacing varied by a few thousandths. I'm a confirmed believer in both methods in each respective application.

[10Turkeys]

If you want about 12.00 worth of advise (plus shipping), Midwayusa has this video in stock. Some of things in the video are dated, but plenty of useful information.  When your putting your loads together, I always use the KISS method. 1 is it safe? 2 is it accurate? 3 will it do what you want?.

[Crazymonkey]

This is great information with good explanation from all as to why and for what purpose you do what you do it shows there are good applications for each method as I learn it is important to try and get as much real world advice as possible as you guys are actually doing what your saying thanks to all

[lancetkenyon]

I FL size with the die set up correctly everytime.  

[452b264]

I use a neck bushing die then a body die set to bump the shoulder back  .02 .

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

There are a lot of options and theory’s in this realm but mostly the name of the game is neck tension. On top of this decision I see a lot of guys using force gages on their seating set up to ensure neck tension. 
I was doing this by gaging neck finish diameter with pins down to .0001 size range. A reamer was then used to ensure fit. A force gage is much better and can help with SD on velocity. 

[recurveman]

FL every time.   My father in law shoots the 1000 yard matches all the time across the southwest.   Him and all of his shooting buddies all FL size their brass.   I would encourage you to do the same.   Your biggest concern should be reliability.   Getting the tightest tolerances isn't always the most important part.   Having brass that feeds consistently is important.   You won't notice a difference between neck and FL sizing.   If you want to see differences then get the best reloading dies you can.   They should run you about $250 not the $40 redding dies.   I think it is WAY more important to send a mandrel down the inside of the brass than just about anything else.   That will give you very consistent neck tension and I believe that is one of the most important aspects of really tight groups.  

[Crazymonkey]

I tend to run hornady or some rcbs dies I got with a bunch of reloading stuff from my dad all free he taught some classes on reloading at some point.but I went with a nice new set of rcbs dies for this as to insure they are not damaged from miss use .most of the free dies were pistol which is setup on a old layman six station single stage .run 44 on one side and 38/357 on the other my other press is a hornady single stage with the collet bushings for quick change 

[Saguaro]

I guess I’m in the minority here.  I neck size most of my bolt action but full length size levers and semi autos.  It seems like I may be wrong with most here full length sizing.  Now that I moved back to my home town for the purpose of doing more shooting, I think I will try the full length and see where it goes.  I’m not one of those people that are above learning something or claiming I’m right.  It’s been about 20 years since I’ve been neck sizing and I know since then, there’s been better and better materials and methods so I will give it a shot.  I never had any problems with the neck sizing, I just had to make sure to keep my brass away from others and it will always chamber.

[Crazymonkey]

My dad did a lot of competition shooting way back in the day off hand at steel rams and such I was probably 5 then so 30 plus years ago and it was always fire formed neck sized brass for comps.I'm thinking the brass has come along way since then .I hope to get his ruger 308 comp gun some day .I only got to shoot it 1 time about 20 yrs ago crazy light trigger in ounces