Anyone use Neck Mandrels?

[cherokeetracker]

Just wondering if anyone here uses a neck mandrel to check their brass when setting up equipment for loading?  Some of you precision rifle shooters here might, and if you ever did have you used this product? If not, here is a link to it.

                 ballistictools.com/store/case-mouth-gage-224-308 

  It seems handy and works good, and the price is reasonable.   As with anything nowadays it would be a good idea to double check the diameters with a good Mic.  I had no problems, just maybe I am a little over cautious.

[2 Dogs]

I use them for various reasons, most often to prep my brass for neck turning. However I recently got a lot of Lapua 223 brass that had so much neck tension that when I tried to seat a bullet the shoulder would collapse enough to create enough of a headspace issue that the firing pin couldn't ignite the primer. You could not see this with the naked eye as it was very slight but it was there. I had to disassemble that ammunition and seat the bullets to jam into the rifling to get them to ignite. Thus I got my 223 Lapua brass to fireform to 223 AI. After that experience I used my K&M mandrel to open that lot of case necks to allow the bullets to seat without setting the shoulder back.

This is yet another reason why I like to load at the range and am always preaching to test your ammunition before you go off and load a 5 gallon bucket of stuff you end up taking apart because your gun wont shoot it. With a revolver, your cylinder is your case gauge. With a auto pistol, your barrel is your case gauge. With a bolt action rifle, you take the guts out of the bolt and use the chamber as your case gauge. You set your headspace and or seating depth with your bolt tension. That is, your bolt should just barely close with only a light finger pressure on the case, and for hunting ammunition I like the bolt to to close by itself when seating bullets as I don't want my hunting bullets touching my lands. The more your rifle is a precision instrument, the more important it is to achieve "zero" or perfect headspace.

[dhd]

I use 21st Century products for neck turning and that includes both types of their mandrels. I don't use the expander mandrel necessarily to size my brass, only to get it up to size for neck turning.

Every set of rifle dies I use are bushing dies. I use the bushings, annealing every other firing, and lots of time with the particular brands of brass I use (call it feel if you will) to keep up with seating force. I suspect highly you know this, but my target tells me what I need to know. I have been able to see differences in neck tension over a chronograph too, but only small differences.

I will typically start with a bushing .002" under what a loaded rounds neck reads. The .002" seems to be a standard suggestion when loading for match ammo though some use less and some need to use more for particularly thin necks (6PPC is a good example).

I glanced at the tool you linked to and understand it's use but probably wouldn't use it as I have so many measuring device's already.

[bushog]

Sinclair...Sinclair...Sinclair....

[flyingzebra]

I shoot essentially right out the door of my machine shop.
We can place targets out past the mile from here.
Loading room is an appendage of the machine shop.

On some projects I will use gage pins in the collet lathe as neck mandrels for trimming and turning cartridge brass.
It can be handy.
I will mount a case holder in the tool post for setting and pulling the brass from the pin.