Thin to Win

I

idaho bruce

Guest
In the current Precision Rifleman, Jack Neary has written an article on "Rifle Tuning for Optimal Performance" where he states cutting neck wall thickness "thin to win". I have re-read the article two or three times and I cannot find a "reason" for the "thin to win" statement. In Tony Boyers book "The Book of Rifle Accuracy" on page 147 he states for a chamber neck diameter of 0.263 that the finished wall thickness should be 0.0009. I respect both of these shooters. Please understand that I am not trying to get between "two-hall-of-famers" and strart an argument, I would just like to understand why the difference in neck wall thickness is different between the two. I shoot a 0.263 chamber and have always cut my neck wall thickness to 0.009 like Tony says in his book. Trying to read between the lines in Jacks' article, it sounds like there is more to come from Jack and I may be jumping the gun in writing this thread and Jack will answer my question in a follow on article. Thanks, Bruce
 
I suggest that you watch the six segments that one of Jacks presentations has been divided into on Youtube. I think that you will find your best explanation there.
 
ii think you have a typo...

0.0009....maybe you meant 0.009
 
I think what Jack is talking about is giving the loaded round a little more clearance in the neck of the chamber, as opposed to many shooters older practice of less than .001 overall clearance.

Regardless of your neck size, make sure your chamber has at least .0015 clearance over the largest part of the loaded rounds neck in a 6PPC and .0025 in a 30BR.

When shooters ask me what my neck wall thickness is, I tell them I do not know. I go by what the loaded round actually measures.
 
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There is no "better" neck clearance. Just make sure you've got some clearance and you're good to go. When shooting with minimal clearance you need to measure now and then to make sure you've still got a bit of clearance. Other than that it's whoever has the best barrel.....
 
thanks Boyd for suggesting I watch Jacks videos, they are most informative, and yes there was a typo in my post...should have read 0.009 and not 0.0009. thanks to all for responding to my thread, Bruce
 
I have watched his videos a few times

As well as have sat in on his sessions a few times. He has a lot of good info.

Remember Jack is a HOF shooter that is giving his ideas of what has worked for him. All the other HOF shooters may have a different take on it. My take like many is or will be if it is working for you why change it????

I have been told you cut your necks thin enough so that you can basically drop a bullet into the neck of a case that has NOTbeen sized. Is that correct? I have no idea just ones way of doing it that was passed on to me.

I have sense decided to go back to what worked for me when I first started. 1.5 thou total clearance and lots of neck tension even with a 269 neck. It worked for me at the 2015 Nats for my abilities so will see if it still works this year. And I am far from being able to drop a bullet down the neck......???
JMO
 
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There is no "better" neck clearance. Just make sure you've got some clearance and you're good to go. When shooting with minimal clearance you need to measure now and then to make sure you've still got a bit of clearance. Other than that it's whoever has the best barrel.....

When you shoot long enough and wear out enough barrels you will discover, as long as necks are kept clean, a barrel can be tuned with a TOTAL clearance of anywhere between 0.0005"' and 0.004". The rule here is consistency, consistency, consistency!

The critical place is to measure, with the bullet seated, over the largest diameter of the seated bullet. Measure at the pressure ring on flat based bullets or at the base of the bullet body on boat tails.

You will note, with careful measurement, the loaded case neck gets larger below that location because your neck sizing operation doesn't go all the way to the case neck/shoulder intersection because the neck sizing bushing has a radius and most sizing dies don't hold the neck bushing that low. But that is ok.

.
 
I've attended several of Jack's presentations including the original one posted on YouTube. The context was that he had previously been turning neck slightly larger (and thus, slightly less clearance). BR shooters have a tendency to believe that tight tolerances are always better, without objectively considering the elements being fitted. In the case of neck turning, a good clearance is at least .0010 to .0015 all the way around the neck. So by way of example:

.263 Neck: .009 * 2 + .243 = .261 => .0020 total clearance (.001 around the full circumference of the neck)

Stacked errors come into play and if your neck turning is a off by a tenth (.0091) and the bullet is a touch fat (.2432) you end up with
.0091 * 2 + .2432 = .2614 => .0016 total clearance (.0008 around the full circumference of the neck)

Add to that a touch of carbon inside the neck and/or chamber area and suddenly there's a potential for near zero clearance and inconsistent bullet release. Jack's point was to error on the side of caution and trim the neck's a bit thinner to ensure you don't have that issue. Easy reminder: 'thin to win'.

The math is just theoretical. Accurately measuring neck wall thickness, bullet pressure rings, chamber neck dimensions, and loaded rounds all to the .0001" level is harder than it looks. Metal moves. Reamers wander. Bullets can vary from lot to lot. Instruments are not necessarily calibrated identically. I've got three different instruments with .0001" graduations to measure my case necks and they vary by as much .0002 in their answers. My solution: always use the same one and don't worry too much about the absolute number.

Try a blind test of shooting some blocks of ammo with dirty necks versus some with cleaned (inside and out) necks. If the dirty necks show more flyers, then you might be a touch 'safer' to turn to .0089 or .0088 and see if inconsistent release is causing the issue.

Rod
 
The simplest way to tell if you're running too tight in the clearance department is to look at the carbon ring around the neck after the case has been fired. If it's a line that goes straight around the neck, then you aren't running enough clearance. If the carbon line drops down on one side, then you are. A bullet won't slip into the neck of the fired case unless you are using way more clearance than I'm running. My reamer cuts a .2655" neck most generally. I'm turning for a .0102" thick neck, just because that's where I got the neck turner set when I was turning necks. My boat tail bullet measures .2432". .2432" + .0102" + .0102" = .2636" for .0019" clearance on the .2655" chamber neck. The reamer is marked for a .265" neck, but cuts a little oversize. It does give the sine wave type carbon ring around the neck when its fired. I turned some brass last week for a .0096" thick neck and it didn't seem that they shot quite as well as the slightly thicker brass. But, to be fair about that I didn't try a tighter bushing to size the brass more to match the same seating pressure that I was using with the thicker necks. Brass thickness is a pretty simple thing to experiment with to check. What someone tells you or what works for someone else may work well with your rifle or it may not. Chambers are different, leades are different and what works for one may not work for all. I've been shooting the borerider reamer almost exclusively for the past year and started out with it this year. Bill Summers is using a reamer based on my same reamer print and he's finding the same thing that I am with it. That is that the freebore seems to take out seating depth out of the equation as it's pretty seating depth insensitive, but you have to make up for it with seating pressure. Not sure whether taking seating depth out of the equation is a good thing or bad thing. I'm not fully committed yet to this reamer. Time will tell, but so far I haven't seen a reason to quit using it.

Best thing you can do when shooting benchrest is to spend a lot of time at the range and find out what works the best in your rifle. Get the bugs worked out of your system. Sizing die matching your chamber, where you don't have extraction problems with hotter loads. That kind of thing. I'd also suggest shooting at the range with a timer just as if you were in a match. One of the most critical things I've found is when you choose to start shooting your group during that 7 minutes. Start in the right conditions and you'll do well, start in the wrong condition and you'll struggle.
 
THX Mike for reminding

Me of something........

The SIGN WAVE. ....

I was told that years ago. See what happens when you live in the great white north? You do not look at your BR rifles from the end of September until maybe the middle of April. Then it is a scramble to get your head around shooting, tuning and the such......

FRICK I HATE our Canadian winters.....

Calvin
 
Me of something........

The SIGN WAVE. ....

I was told that years ago. See what happens when you live in the great white north? You do not look at your BR rifles from the end of September until maybe the middle of April. Then it is a scramble to get your head around shooting, tuning and the such......

FRICK I HATE our Canadian winters.....

Calvin

There were quite a few Canadians at the Cactus that had enough of the great white north and made it down south to Phoenix last weekend. All to have Larry Costa show us how it should be done.
 
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