Collet or Busing or Ball Neck Dies?

[rmidgett]

Greetings to the group,

Having purchased a Savage model 10 in .223 Remington, I'm interested in handloading ammo with very good uniformity for target shooting. I'm new to this sport, so there's lots to be learned.

Reading about the different methods of dealing with lacking concentricity & with proper bullet tension, neck thickness & run out & such, I'd like to know if any of you have strong opinions on whether the bushing style, collet style or ball style neck sizing dies give the best results in terms of concentricity and bullet tension.

Keep in mind this is for a bolt gun which will see only the same fire formed brass repeatedly.

[Westwindmike]

I think all the benchrest guys use the bushing type dies. Separate one for neck and body. I just use a Lee collet type in my 223 bolt gun and get good accuracy. I found that seating depth mattered more to my model 12 Savage than whether I full length or neck sized.  Good luck with yours.

[Jakeway]

I've never used the bushing dies, but have used Lee Collett neck dies and RCBS neck dies, as well as adjusting my regular FL sizing dies to only size the neck.

 

The Lee Collett Die worked much better for me, and especially considering you don't have to use any lube at all...makes sizing as fast as de-capping.

[Dolomite_supafly]

Get a Redding body die to bump the entire case back into shape when it needs it. Get the Lee collet die and use it to squeeze the neck back into shape. I normally take a few thousandths off the diameter of the pin to get it a bit more neck tension so I do not have to crimp.

I have used a factory Savage barrel to shoot .2's at 100 yards. It was a 26" 7 twist barrel with fluting.

If you are wanting the most accuracy you MUST do a lot of work to your brass, even new or quality brass, and bullets. One of the things I do is uniform and deburr the flash hole. Lyman makes the perfect tool for this. It made such a big improvement that I do that to every single rifle case now. Size, trim and weigh the cases into lots. This will ensure the cases are as identical as possible. Use quality brass. Winchester is about the best "budget" brass.

For the bullets I would get two Hornady comparators for a 223 and attach each to a caliper. That way you can measure the bearing surface of the bullets. Sierra tends to be pretty uniform in weight but their bearing surface can vary. Sort them by bearing surface length. The longer the bearing surface the higher the pressure and the higher the pressure the higher the velocity. So if you have an identical case with an identical charge of powder and you have two bullets that weigh the same but have different bearing surface lengths the gun will string vertically.

I never got into turning necks because consistent .3's was good enough for me.

I would start out with 24.5-24.7 grains of Varget under a 69 SMK loaded to 2.24". That seems to be a very, very accurate load in a lot of guns (not just mine). Velocity will be down some with shorter barrels but boy was this accurate in a lot of my guns. In a 16" barrel it ran ~2,350 fps and in a 26" barrel it ran ~2,950 fps. My barrel did not mind the jump and actually shot better loaded to magazine length rather than to the lands.

The key to accuracy is consistency.

There are also things that you must do to a Savage to squeak every last bit of accuracy. Make sure the cocking pin is not bottoming out on the bolt body. Make sure firing pin protrusion is as close to .042" as possible. Savage's are the easiest guns to make adjustments to and anything you might need to do to a Savage doesn't require a gunsmith.

The best trigger YOU can install in a Savage is the Sharp Shooter Supply competition trigger. But DO NOT order directly from them, it will take them a lot longer to deliver and they are temperamental if you complain. So buy it from anywhere else that sells them. Matter of fact do not buy anything from SSS directly, just not worth the risk.

If you want I can PM you my number and we can discuss Savages and how to make them shoot.