Quote Originally Posted by Tim K View Post
Ok, I think I understand your neck procedure. Myself, I'd skip all that and get a die sized (bushing or honed) to give you the correct neck diameter without an expander ball. This has a couple of advantages.

1. You're working your brass less. This will be good for brass life.
2. You won't need to lube the inside of the neck. I find this to be key to making loading on a progressive press work. Lube in the neck will catch powder and make a mess. Stick powder is not so bad, but with ball powder it's a real problem.
That makes perfect sense, and seems to get to the same place/result in a more streamlined fashion.

Only question I have would be, how much impact do you see from case wall thickness variations using that approach?

With all forming performed on external surfaces, would you not see corresponding variations in neck ID? If so, would that fall below any reasonable threshold for impact? Contrasted with forming to desired neck ID based on internal contact points (making wall thicknesses less relevant; at least insofar as neck diameter/tension, if not case volume, etc.)

Also, honed sizing dies would be to standard target dimentions correct? (e.g. caliber specific w/ some custom specs, as opposed to chamber-specific from fired/formed case).

The lube inside case necks is a solid point, but I haven't been to concerned with that just because I'm probably over-killing it with the wet tumble (easy to just throw a load in and walk away for a couple hours, and no big deal if something comes up and I have to leave turning a while longer), and by separating the prep and load stages, with final wet ss tumble after prep, hoping not to run into that particular issue.


Quote Originally Posted by Tim K View Post

I have a Giraud and wouldn't trade it for anything. It integrates into my process perfectly.

BTW, here's my process starting with dirty brass.

1. Anneal in the AMP annealer
2. Trim in the Giraud. I had shell holders reamed out to hold fired brass.
3. Tumble clean (wet or dry depending on my mood)
4. Lube with OneShot
Is there any benefit to trimming prior to resizing, other than eliminating a wash cycle?

Also, are you re-annealing each batch?


This is great info, thanks! Apologies for the bit of topic drift from OP, or if any of these are dumb questions.