Case Neck Turning

[Toepopper]

There is a group of shooters known as bench rest shooters who demand accuracy and will go to any length to attain the tightest groups possible. The extremes these people go to for that perfect shot borders on obsessive compulsive disorder. Most bench rest shooters reload their own ammunition to get maximum accuracy and performance from each shot fired and one extra process they perform in reloading is to mike the necks of the empty shell casings to guarantee they are a uniform thickness all the way around the neck of the case. The theory being that the act of turning eccentric case necks to a consistent wall thickness, when ignition occurs the bullet releases from the thin side first and causes a slight bullet to bore misalignment that can have a disastrous effect on accuracy. Some bench rest shooters have a device with a heavy base to mount and hold the casing so they can use a dial indicator to check the case necks while slowly spinning the cases. Any case neck that is .002" out of wall variation from one side to the other must be turned with a hand held case neck shaving tool that cuts the brass off of the thick side of the case, leaving a perfectly concentric case neck. The Forster handheld outside neck turning tool has a micrometer adjustment that allows for a cut of .0005" or one half a thousandths of an inch per revolution. Most case necks can be as much as .005" out of round. Needless to say that this extra effort takes as much time as the entire reloading process does and from my own experience it does not enhance accuracy very much and is not worth the hassle. My groups never improved with the case neck turned reloads so for me, I have come to the conclusion that this procedure is just a waste of time. Weighing the bullets to make certain they all weigh the same and very accurate powder measurements are the 2 most critical aspects of reloading accurate ammunition.