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Squaring Case Heads in Lathe
03lover
Member Posts: 67 ✭✭
I have seen reference to using a lathe to turn out of square case heads Square.
How does a person put shell casings that all have some taper to the case body in a standard lathe chuck and hope to keep the axis of the case body square to the base of the case? The chuck jaws are parallel not tapered or adjustable for taper.
Any help with how I can square case heads in a standard lathe will be appreciated.
How does a person put shell casings that all have some taper to the case body in a standard lathe chuck and hope to keep the axis of the case body square to the base of the case? The chuck jaws are parallel not tapered or adjustable for taper.
Any help with how I can square case heads in a standard lathe will be appreciated.
Comments
I'd be very interested in two things.
First I also want to see some photo's of the cases chucked in a lathe. I suspect a special collet modified to the correct taper of the case being worked on.
Second I'm trying to figure out how the case heads got out of square in the first place? If they were bought that way, shooting them should fire form them to the rifle in question, if they come out of the rifle "bent" then making them square is only going to work until they get fired again! Problem starts all over!
Check rifle? I'm very interested in the possible response to this topic[8D]
03lover:
I'd be very interested in two things.
First I also want to see some photo's of the cases chucked in a lathe. I suspect a special collet modified to the correct taper of the case being worked on.
Second I'm trying to figure out how the case heads got out of square in the first place? If they were bought that way, shooting them should fire form them to the rifle in question, if they come out of the rifle "bent" then making them square is only going to work until they get fired again! Problem starts all over!
Check rifle? I'm very interested in the possible response to this topic[8D]
I thank XXCross for the sugestion to use a full length sizing die in the lathe to hold the shell casing in good alinement while squaring up the case heads. It works, it is slow but I should have to do it just once. This brass that was squared up will have be fire formed in the rifle it will be used in due to the headspace of the shell casing being affected by the brass removed.
Case heads can be knocked out of square by several different conditions depending on the rifle they are fired in.
Most of the brass I have that needs to be sorted and case heads squared up or sent to the scrap yard are casings I purchased as nice once fired brass. Several thousand rounds of 223 mixed military and commercial. A couple thousand rounds of nice once fired 30-06 and 500 rounds of 303 British.
I bought this brass a long time ago and stashed it away until now. Now I know it was a mistake to purchase the once fired 223 and 30-06 brass not knowing what firearm it was fired in. The 223 was likely fired in M16 rifles, semi-auto and full auto which is darn hard on brass, The 30-06 could have been fired M1 Garands or even machine guns. Machine guns are especially hard on brass and more often than not they have excess headspace and stretch the heck out of the brass. I am learning this the hard way.
None of these firearms are noted for maintaining good case head squareness after being fired in these firearms.
The M1 Garands quite often beat the heck out of the rim when chambering a round and the extractor can yank the rim outward in the extraction cycle, making a mess of case head squareness. I have a bunch of brass that was fired in M1 Garands to prove it.
Also, many rifles, even commercial, leave the factory with bolt faces less than square to the axis of the receiver and barrel, some worse than others, most are pretty good. Some rifles have actions that are of minimum strength for the cartridge they are designed to fire. Many of these rifles are WW2 military and produced with very sloppy actions.
As for my 303 British brass, once fired that I purchased or factory ammo I fired in my British Lee Enfields, it is the worst for case head squareness because the Lee Enfield actions, No.1 and No.4 style are the weakest action I know of. The single locking lug on one side of the bolt allows a great deal of twisting of the bolt in the receiver and ruins the case head squareness of the brass.
Now I have to be clear that 95% of my shooting is with light to mid-range cast bullet loads. None of these loads have enough energy to knock case heads out of square, even in the Lee Enfields I shoot. Carefully sorted brass has proved that.
Bottom line is: there are a lot of rifles that by the nature of their design mess up case head squareness. There is plenty of brand new commercial brass that is more than .002" out of square case head and that is enough affect accuracy in a great shooting rifle.
I want to start my shooting with 223 Rem and 30-06 brass with case head squareness close to .001" or less. The two rifles are extremely accurate with good ammo and are the only two that I shoot only jacketed ammo in.
testing the 303 British ammo in my No. 1 and No. 4 rifles proves they will shoot better groups if the case head squareness is less than .002" out. Also, the cast loads I shoot do not cause the case head squareness to get any worse.
Thanks to all who have responded.
If your rifles are as square, true and accurate as you claim than simply firing the brass one time will square up the case heads to your rifles. Otherwise purchase a couple hundred pieces of Norma brass and be done with it.
BTW, just because a top benchrest shooter, with a winning rifle, can tell the difference dosn't mean the rest of us peons can.
Personaly I think your going in the wrong direction with this, but I've been off center myself a few times [:D]
Your concern about protuding primers actually has no basis for concern.
In squaring up the case, the only material being removed is the high side and that rarely amounts more than .003". I shoot for case head squareness of .001 or less when sorting and stop at .001" when turning in the lathe.
I have only two rifles that are accurate enough to use the best brass I can provide. A few others can tell the difference between really bad brass and good brass and I sort for them.
Simply firing bad brass in a good rifle to square up case heads doesn't work. The previous firing in someone elses rifle that knocked the heads out of square also caused a slight increase in the hardness of the brass due to the working of the brass. In order to true up the brass by firing, the brass would have to be bent slightly past true to allow for spring back. A good rifle doesn't provide for bending past and the load required if it could work would be quite hot, if not too hot.
I for one do not like Norma brass. I had one experience with 6.5mm Jap Norma brass that when fired with loads well under maximum, had a horrible expansion ring just above the base web. I purchased (500) rounds of Chinese 6.5mm Jap in stripper clips and fired it in my rifle to see if my rifle had an oversized chamber. The fired brass look 100% normal. Then I pulled down five rounds of the Chinese rounds leaving the berdan primers and loaded with my powder charge and bullet. When fired, the results were 100% normal. The only conclusion I could come to was the Norma brass was too soft in the base area. From that point on I had to use only light cast bullet loads in the Norma brass. Once burned I don't jump back into the fire.
You are absolutely correct that most of us will never know the difference if case heads are out of square. I hope you understand I have only two rifles that can and do provide even better groups with brass that is as near perfect as possible.
For fun I shoot a bunch of rifles that can shoot good to very good groups with anything I can chamber and fire, but they will never come close the the other two rifles. I guess you could call the two rifles benchrest class although I don't shoot in competition.
My intent with this case head squareness is to shoot only the best in the rifles that can benefit from it. The reason for sorting is to avoid using really bad brass in any rifle. I can come up with plenty of excuses for a bad shot, right or wrong, so I don't need help with more bad shots because of bad brass.
I don't believe I am going in the wrong direction. I am going to the extreme where I think I can benefit from it.
We have long cold winters here in Minnesota, and that provides me with plenty of time to work on things that may help me shoot smaller groups when I can get back to shooting. I am retired and have a shooting range on my own property. I am blessed with the opertunity to shoot whenever a Honey Do project doesn't top the list of things to do or weather and deep snow and cold prevent me from shooting. Our weather is doing the later now. The snow is getting deep and it is cold, with temperatures in the upper teens to low twenties for highs and it will get colder. Drifting snow has many times prevented me from getting to my shooting range, even with a large tractor with chains.
I have a large bullet casting project to work on after the holidays. that will eat up some of the long winter.
Good shooting, be safe and thanks for all the help.
It's a "gimmie" that military rifles in general and machine guns in particular are deliberately chambered sloppy. The idea is to keep the weapon working no matter how deep the mud puddle a G.I. falls into is! I had a friend with a Mac-10 in 45 auto and the case's looked pregnant when ejected! Some I actually had to pound into the sizing die to be able to use them again.
However your original question suggested you were having trouble with a commercial bolt gun. I don't see the problem here? I will refer you to an article in Shooting Times, Don't ask month or yr please but I think it was in 2005 or 2006, concerning bullet run out. Same deal! As long as they were under .0025 in case neck run out the authors standard sporter could not tell the difference between his reloads or factory. As run out increased, of course, he saw appreciable differences in group size.
I believe that exploring all possiblites during handloading is good form. However it must be backed up with good "reproduceable" targets that show a measuable difference in before and after shooting!
The easiet way to prove your point? Shoot five 3 round or even 5 round groups. 5 targets with perfect brass, 5 targets with out of square brass, we'll ask that you use the factory rounds that are out abot two thousandths for the "bad" ammo!
Use a good commercial bolt action rifle, Savage, Remingtion or Winchester and then average the groups and/or print the targets for us to see!
One more thing: your enfield rifle. These are a good strong actions as they had to survive british proofing. Most will stretch and even split case's on the first firing because of the way they are chambered. I have seen 3 of these 303 disasters with the barrels set back and a "Good Reamer" used to rechamber them. All three of these rifles will now keep up with any other commercial rifle on the market as long as the sighting system are equal. A "springy" bolt is not the problem if the rifle is in good condition![8D]
The limited testing I have done proves out of square case heads affects group size. This is true of brass of unequal weights, uneven case neck thickness case concentricity and loaded round concentricity, and more.
It is safe to say, consistency promotes better accuracy and all perfect componants in a perfectly loaded round will shoot most accurately. I doubt many will argue with this. If they do argue, I can only assume they are either really bad shots or their firearm shoots shotgun patterns, not groups which means they couldn't prove anything good or bad.
You referred to an artical. I will do the same and refer to an artical in which the person proved beyond a doubt, the negative affect out of square case heads had on accuracy.
He sorted the brass into lots of .001" or less, .001" to .002" and so on. He loaded all the different lots exactely the same and headed to the range. He fired three five shot groups with each lot, loading the rounds radomly into the chamber. Firing was done at only 100 yards. The .001" or less shot extremely well. The .001" to .002" enlarged the groups enough to be noticable to the naked eye and easily measured. The .002" to .003" groups were close to 50% larger than those fired with the .001" or less. By the time he got to the .004' or more he didn't have (25) of them but with 20 rounds he fired two five shot groups that were more than double of the .001 or less. He saved back (10) rounds of each lot to test another phase of his now proven theory. He had located the high spot on each of the case heads and fired two five shot groups with each lot with the high spot located at the top dead center of the chamber. All groups fired this way were just as good and those fired with the .001" or less but higher on the target. Consistency, again it works even with bad brass.
The results of his test caused him to sort through hundreds of rounds of brass to get enough additional lots of out of square case heads. He loaded them with the same loads as the previous test, and again marked all the case heads with the high spot. He then fired five shot groups with the high spot at the top of the chamber again and again he got good groups. Without changing the target he fired two more five shot groups but with the high spot mark at the bottom of the chamber. Again he got good groups, but he clearly had groups high on the target and groups low on the target. By the time he was firing the .003" to .004" rounds the groups could be seen with a clear seperation of the two groups.
I have a feeling you will never agree with this persons testing or little of what I say. That isn't important to me. I present what I know to be factual information, well established by the top benchrest shooters and that I have rifles that can cut groups sizes to half or even less the size when the case heads are .001" out of square or less. For sure I have also turned case necks so they are uniform, weighted the brass into seperate lots by weight, uniform the primer pockets and flash hole, fire form them to the rifle and then neck size only using a Redding Competition Bushing Neck Sizing Die. The bushing I use is carefully selected to avoid overworking the brass, no expander is needed, and the bullet pull I want is very consistant. I do even more but I don't want bore everyone with more than the want to hear.
I end my imput to this topic with this response. The readers are either convinced what I have said could be true, maybe riding the fence or think it all hogwash. If a person reads enough of the forums or other material on the subject, it can be a real learning experience even if the readers will never put the knowledge to use. Then there are those that don't want to learn any more than what they already know or believe. That is OK for them but not me. I would look forward to competing with the non believers. Then they may be convinced that better brass means better groups.
By By
I can't agree more that a good case is the basic starting point for an accurate load.
I have also turned necks, trimmed to length, and reamed primer pockets. All of these thing contribute to good groups.
However I also learned that unless the weapon in question is capable of telling the difference some times all this extra work is just spiting in the wind!
Your also correct in the fact that people learn from reading what we contribute in these Posts and I hope we've been entertaining.
Accuacy is, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Each of us will determine accurate or not by our own standards and on our own targets. Wether Case heads are not square may be a moot point to some and an absolute pain for others.
This is what makes reloading fun.
It boils down to this: If I'm shooting F class I'll worry about case condition, all case conditions! If I'm shooting my bud's WWII SMLE at pop bottles at 75 yards probably not so much.[8D]