Full length or neck sizing?

[Lazy-H98]

Once brass is fire formed to your barrel, do you guys full length size or neck size?  What are the pros and cons?  For my 7MM Tikka.

[recurveman]

Always full length size your brass.   Would just neck sizing your brass improve accuracy?  Maybe by the smallest of fractions.   If you were shooting bench rest then I might think about it.   Even the guys shooting 1000 yard matches full length size their brass and do just fine.   Now here is the down side.   If you only neck size your brass and the tolerances are a bit tighter and you get a bit of something in your chamber you are going to have problems.   The most important thing to consider in the field is reliability and full length sizing your brass will give you better reliability.  

Your Tikka should be able to get to 1/2 MOA accuracy with hand loads and full length sizing your brass.    My Tikka does 1/2 MOA all day long.   The difference in accuracy at 500+ yards has everything to do with knowing your rifle and how the variables affect the POI at those distances.   

Point in case.   I have a hunt this fall where I will be at between 8000-10000 feet of elevation.   I was in the white mountains this weekend and brought my tikka superlite .308 with me.    I shot a few shots at 200 and then stepped back to 600 and killed a bit more paper to verify my load, gun, elevation, ect.

[CouesPursuit]

Had a similar paragraph typed up but recurveman beat me to it. There are other considerations, but when you are talking about a hunting rifle shooting at reasonable distances, it is tough to argue the stance of getting the round chambered without issue. I didn't think much of it until I lost a couple opportunities on coyotes after neck sizing brass that had been fired a few times. 

[452b264]

A body die and a Redding competition neck sizing die. This gives you the best of both worlds.

[10Turkeys]

It's basically your choice, but sooner or later just neck sizing your brass it's not going to chamber. If you set your dies to bump the shoulder back two thousands, and don't hot rod your loads, with quality brass they will last a long time.

[Red Rabbit]

I have been using a FL die to just partially resize and bump the shoulder rather than fully FL resize.  I have not have any feeding/chambering issues this way, but one should feed their ammo before a hunt to check for any problems.  I have purchased factory ammo with the neck mouth bent back so obviously it would not chamber.

[SHOOTER]

Bump shoulder .002" with a FL die and never look back!

 I went through the neck sizing phase and it was a pain to FL size every 3 or 4 reloads to get my brass to chamber, I only have 1 rifle that it made a slight noticeable difference to Neck size. it seemed to take the gun from a 1MOA shooter to a 5/8 to 3/4 moa gun. The rest of my rifles dont seem to have a preference, After going through it all I am a FL size only guy now.

[Lazy-H98]

Thank you fellas for the responses.  I FL sized some yesterday. 

[lancetkenyon]

I FL size every rifle, and every time I load brass.  

I only neck sized once....by accident.  I purchased a set of Redding 6CM FL dies with bushing FL, and micrometer seating die.  Never even checked the dies.  Got 300 pieces of Lapua 6.5CM brass and ran them through to neck size (before Lapua 6CM was available).  After shooting them, ran them through the FL die and bumped shoulders .0015". 

I did a huge no-no at this point. Loaded them up without checking fit of resized brass in the rifle.

Did 250 pieces like this.  

Well, I took 50 of the FL sized brass and decided to try some 115 Bergers in the rifle.  Seated one long to check CBTO to lands, and bolt was very stiff to close.  I figured bullet must be jammed hard into the lands.  Opened the bolt, and the brass had a nice shiny ring around the body just below the shoulder.  

Measured the area on the FL sized brass, a piece of fired, and a virgin brass.....

FL sized .463"

Fired .463"

Virgin .4615"

WTH?  Checked the dies.....my "FL" die is stamped "neck".  Argh!  

Bought a new body die and a new FL die.  Ran the loaded rounds through the body die.  .4615".  Smooth like butter.  

Moral of the story (X2, maybe 3):

1.  Check your sized brass in your rifle before you load it.  I have never, EVER, done this before.  Don't rush the process.  Double check everything.

2.  Check your dies.  Manufacturers can make mistakes.

3.  Don't neck size.

[lancetkenyon]

Double post

[recurveman]

There is one really important point about besides the neck sizing.   ALWAYS check to make sure that the FIRST piece of brass that you make FITS into the gun.   It completely sucks (been there done that) to pull bullets after you figure out that your fresh reloads don't fit in the gun.   It really sucks to be at the range and figure out that you won't be shooting that day.   CHECK, CHECK, RECHECK your loads.  Not just for size.    Make sure the primers are in the right direction (gun goes click instead of boom!!!), bullets are seated at the right length, correct powder (watched a guy load varget instead of 4831.  Bought a new rifle the next day and luckily didn't have an emergency room visit).   There are a ton of really small details that need to be checked if the reloader wants to have success and reliability.    

[lancetkenyon]

Gee, thanks.  Make me feel like an idiot.....

[Hoss50]

I full length size because I own/inherited all full length die sets... I am no reloading genius but it has worked well for me so far.

[10Turkeys]

2 hours ago, lancetkenyon said:

Gee, thanks.  Make me feel like an idiot.....

I think anyone who has been at it long enough has more than one oops story to tell. I know I do.

[recurveman]

17 hours ago, lancetkenyon said:

Gee, thanks.  Make me feel like an idiot.....

Oh I was talking about my mistakes not yours.   I've got a very long list of "are you kidding me" moments over the years.