Neck Sizing - how long until you bump...?

[Gwion]

Will need annealing sooner than later but check the trim length. Too long and they can be very tight to chamber.
Number of loads before annealing can vary greatly depending on how heaviky the brass is being worked by the load and your dies. If you have access to good annealing equipment, it is worth just setting a standard for yourself and following it, like anneal after every fourth firing, or something.

[Stix]

My understanding of why the 'bushing bump' dies don't hurt the case body is that:
a/ the case is generally tapered, which is itself a supporting factor
b/ the case wall gets thicker from shoulder to case head, again a supporting factor
c/ the neck and shoulder were originally annealed to make them softer than the case body wall, again, supporting the wall and making the neck/shoulder give more readily than the case wall.

Makes sense, thanks...

So i wonder how they (bump dies) effect the brass over time, with regard to donuts in the neck & the web of the case getting so thin that it would eventually crumple there with a bump (at the web-assuming the case doesn't separate on a firing in the chamber first) given the brass must be flowing every bump...?
(more rhetorical questions than anything, but it would be interesting to hear from anyone who has solely used a bump die & annealed regularly for the entire life of a batch of brass to see if these things lessen the life of the brass/by how much/vs accuracy/concentricity gains/consistancy...)

(Yes i know, life can be hard being a thinker with OCD...especially when the bank balance & available time dont reflect the level to which one wants to experiment)

[sungazer]

You said you had Lee dies so I would take the mandrel out of the FLS die and seat the die up a bit. Then size the case and try it in you gun keep winding the die down about 1/8 of a turn until the case chambers in your gun easily. Then size all your cases with this setting. Then you can use the Neck sizing die with the mandrel to size the necks.
This avoids pushing and pulling on the case neck which not only hardens it more but also is a big factor in the cases growing.
You are at the point when the case necks / shoulder should be annealed and this should be the first step before any sizing is done.

[sungazer]

Gwion and Stix there are so many types of dies but when I want to bump a shoulder I would use a Redding Body die. This does the sizing on the case and the shoulder but not the neck. You can also use other Redding Dies I have a Neck Die that also does the body part and if you remove the bushing for the neck then it is the same as a body die. That die also has a mandrel with two different heads that a decapping pin can also be fitted to. There is a small head that can be used just to decap, body and neck bushing die, or you can use a large head on the mandrel and it will neck size to that head. You could leave the bushing in there but that would be silly as the head would expand the neck then it would be squeezed by a bushing only to be expanded when you remove the mandrel.
I hope that makes some sense. All those options are not really covered in the instructions of the die but they can be very flexible.

Stix you really shouldn't get case separations if you are mainly neck sizing with a small bump every know and then. It really is caused by oversizing with a FLS die that uses an expander ball. The first thing to go in a well looked after case should be the primer pocket.

[Gaznazdiak]

Seems I'm going to have to do some reading. I've never tried annealing and my budget doesn't have any wriggle room so it would be by hand with a butane torch and spinning them on a cordless drill.
Someone who doesn't reload just gave me 88 once fired ADI cases from Buffalo River factory loads so if I knacker a couple of older ones learning, no great loss.
Ta for the advice.

[Sergeant Hartman]

I am always interested in neck sizing issues. Maybe some do remember I mentioned that after 4 or 5 firings my ppu brass has gotten had to extract and slightly hard to chamber. Basically the bolt turns easily until the last 10 degrees of the turn. I find that if I push the brass just part way through a full length die it chambers fine. So I FLS a few and upon first firing the were incase again became hard to extract. But surprisingly one I pushed part way through the FLS die came out without extraction issues.

Anyway I dunno what's happening, others I ask don't know as well. So I'll just chuck the ones with the issues in the bin. I have another 250 once fired ppu brass to go through and only 300 odd zmax projectiles

[Viktor]

Hi guys! Starting my reloading 308 win!
Checked my brass from PPU most of it under sized by books it must be 2.015” my brass is around 2.004” I’m planing to put 110 gr Nosler in it but have little concern
Brass was ones fired only from my tikka
Would like to hear your points
Thanks