neck clearance

what do you do for neck clearence in turning your cases for the chamber in your rifles.do you set them up as a tight neck or a slight turn for say .002 per side.
gary b
 
Gary,

What you are referring to is diametrical (spelling?) clearance, which in your example would be .004.

I run my load at about .001

It took me a while to wrap my head around the idea of how the clearance between your case neck and chamber is described, but in the end it made waaaaaaay more sense.

Josh
 
what do you do for neck clearence in turning your cases for the chamber in your rifles.do you set them up as a tight neck or a slight turn for say .002 per side.
gary b

My BR chamber has a .330 neck which probably is .3303 or .3304 in reality so I usually have an overall measured round at .328 to .3285.
 
what do you do for neck clearence in turning your cases for the chamber in your rifles.do you set them up as a tight neck or a slight turn for say .002 per side.
gary b

Not ".002 per side", but .002 overall clearance as measured on the largest part of the loaded rounds neck. This will be where the very base of the bullet is located in the neck.

In recent years, I believe the trend has been to go on the loose side rather than the true "fitted neck" that was popular in years past.

"Fitted Necks" meant that you turned the necks to such a close clearance that you did not have to resize the neck. The natural spring back of the brass accounted for the neck tension.
 
I don't know if the "fitted neck" was popular or just some folks were doing it that way. I tried it for a match or two and it wasn't any better...didn't cause my rifle to shoot better...than having some clearance. All in all, the amount of clearance required for the rifle to shoot within its capabilities is zero to...say...3 thousandths...maybe 4.

Zero clearance has to be watched closely to prevent negative clearance while 2 thou can go a whole match without checking. Either way, if you change bullets, measure the loaded neck to be sure it will fit the chamber...different bullet, different lot, check it. I don't know about the newer jackets but, if I remember correctly, bullets made the same way with different jackets measured a bit differently now and then.
 
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