“The 22 Creedmoor Project”

[Jake Larsen]

Prepping the next test.

I’ll be focused on verifying drop data with the tumbled pieces, and monitoring velocities.

The “no prep” seated with substantially more force (which I expected) and left a small dent in the circumference of the bullet.

View attachment 805647
View attachment 805648

I found the exact same thing with Alpha brass. Used it for two different cartridges now. There’s significant tension if it’s not run across a mandrel. How consistent it is from piece to piece? Who knows…would need one of those computerized tools to measure seating pressure


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[huntnful]

I found the exact same thing with Alpha brass. Used it for two different cartridges now. There’s significant tension if it’s not run across a mandrel. How consistent it is from piece to piece? Who knows…would need one of those computerized tools to measure seating pressure


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That’s pretty much every brand also. They are all undersized quite a bit. It’s not even worth finding out IMO, although they “felt” like they seated with similar pressures. Just plan to mandel virgin cases every time IMO.

I just made a video mandreling the virgin cases without brushing and moly inside the case necks. I’ll upload it and share it tomorrow. There’s a reason I only did 10 of the other prep styles and why I prep them how I do.




That top mandrel has expanded 100’s of necks and is flawless. The bottom mandrel, my 22CM mandrel looked flawless as well prior to expanding the dry necks. This is how it looks after just 10 cases. Scratched and full of brass shavings. And that how the inside of the case necks look as well. Shitty picture because I just zoomed in on the video and screenshot it. I’ll show it better tomorrow. I’m in bed now haha.

 

[T_Widdy]

That’s pretty much every brand also. They are all undersized quite a bit. It’s not even worth finding out IMO, although they “felt” like they seated with similar pressures. Just plan to mandel virgin cases every time IMO.

I just made a video mandreling the virgin cases without brushing and moly inside the case necks. I’ll upload it and share it tomorrow. There’s a reason I only did 10 of the other prep styles and why I prep them how I do.

View attachment 805667


That top mandrel has expanded 100’s of necks and is flawless. The bottom mandrel, my 22CM mandrel looked flawless as well prior to expanding the dry necks. This is how it looks after just 10 cases. Scratched and full of brass shavings. And that how the inside of the case necks look as well. Shitty picture because I just zoomed in on the video and screenshot it. I’ll show it better tomorrow. I’m in bed now haha.
View attachment 805669

I put the mandrel in a drill and Diamond paste on a towel to clean and polish mine up

 

[huntnful]

I put the mandrel in a drill and Diamond paste on a towel to clean and polish mine up

That’s exactly what I’ll be doing as well. I’ve been down this road before haha. I did this one for the people, so they can see for themselves why I prep it how I prep it. It may not even show up on target. But I can see the difference and I can feel the difference. And I don’t like it. Whether I can shoot the difference though…. we’ll see lol.

 

[Matt5266]

Following!

Thanks for doing this. I'm very interested. Look forward to the results!

 

[silasbowhunter]

Interesting! I’ll be following along for the sake of information! Thanks for this.


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[Mhahn2]

To get rid of those rings on your bullets from the seater chuck up a bullet in your drill and get some fitz polishing compound and polish your seating stem until the ring goes away.

 

[Lawnboi]

Interesting on brass prep….

I have seen and dealt with the same thing. Alpha seems to target 2 thou under. I had some 6 creed that was tight but my 22 creed and recent dasher brass has all barely kissed the mandrel. To the point that I skipped that step entirely.

With that said I don’t think those seating forces are a product of overly tight interference fit, but friction of the squeaky clean annealed neck. Same thing can be seen with brass that has been squeaky clean tumbled and then annealed. On alpha you can feel the grittiness of that annealed area.

I do very similar to you, and maybe worth a try.

Mandrel with .002 under mandrel using imperial lube on the rim.

Tumble 1 hour in used corn media

Chamfer/debur

Load

Using an arbor press and going off feel only this is what I have come up with as the most consistent. It’s consistent enough that I would shoot a match with virgin brass (as long as it’s alpha or lapua).

 

[HighUintas]

Interesting on brass prep….

I have seen and dealt with the same thing. Alpha seems to target 2 thou under. I had some 6 creed that was tight but my 22 creed and recent dasher brass has all barely kissed the mandrel. To the point that I skipped that step entirely.

With that said I don’t think those seating forces are a product of overly tight interference fit, but friction of the squeaky clean annealed neck. Same thing can be seen with brass that has been squeaky clean tumbled and then annealed. On alpha you can feel the grittiness of that annealed area.

I do very similar to you, and maybe worth a try.

Mandrel with .002 under mandrel using imperial lube on the rim.

Tumble 1 hour in used corn media

Chamfer/debur

Load

Using an arbor press and going off feel only this is what I have come up with as the most consistent. It’s consistent enough that I would shoot a match with virgin brass (as long as it’s alpha or lapua).

Any ideas for guys that don't have a tumble or vibratory cleaner?

I had really hard seating with some virgin star line 243. I think I tried using graphite in the necks and running through FL die... Helped only marginally. Then I decided to anneal, brush the neck, use graphite, and run it through my FL die and that helped a lot.

It was odd that the only difference was annealing and it helped a lot

 

[Lawnboi]

Any ideas for guys that don't have a tumble or vibratory cleaner?

I had really hard seating with some virgin star line 243. I think I tried using graphite in the necks and running through FL die... Helped only marginally. Then I decided to anneal, brush the neck, use graphite, and run it through my FL die and that helped a lot.

It was odd that the only difference was annealing and it helped a lot

Graphite and annealing don’t go as well as a wet lube. My guess is Starline is factory annealed.

I can’t help in regards to no tumbler, but a small dry tumbler and some corn cob media is fairly inexpensive, and nice to have around to atleast get lube off. The media seems to leave a film on the necks, and it seems to knock down the grittiness of the neck.

You could just attempt to run the mandrel from your die down the case, with lube, and without sizing, but you would still want to get that lube gone before you load.

 

[huntnful]

Interesting on brass prep….

I have seen and dealt with the same thing. Alpha seems to target 2 thou under. I had some 6 creed that was tight but my 22 creed and recent dasher brass has all barely kissed the mandrel. To the point that I skipped that step entirely.

With that said I don’t think those seating forces are a product of overly tight interference fit, but friction of the squeaky clean annealed neck. Same thing can be seen with brass that has been squeaky clean tumbled and then annealed. On alpha you can feel the grittiness of that annealed area.

I do very similar to you, and maybe worth a try.

Mandrel with .002 under mandrel using imperial lube on the rim.

Tumble 1 hour in used corn media

Chamfer/debur

Load

Using an arbor press and going off feel only this is what I have come up with as the most consistent. It’s consistent enough that I would shoot a match with virgin brass (as long as it’s alpha or lapua).

You know that’s a damn good point about most of that additional seating pressure coming more so from the dry neck, than the case not being mandreled. Thank you for bringing that to my attention!

Any ideas for guys that don't have a tumble or vibratory cleaner?

I had really hard seating with some virgin star line 243. I think I tried using graphite in the necks and running through FL die... Helped only marginally. Then I decided to anneal, brush the neck, use graphite, and run it through my FL die and that helped a lot.

It was odd that the only difference was annealing and it helped a lot

Just brushing the necks with an oversized nylon brush on a drill helps immensely. That oxidation that the annealing leaves inside the neck is what it smooths out/removes.

I have a vibratory tumbler (hence doing the test) but I don’t use it anymore unless my brass is REALLY dirty. Brushing the necks gives me the same type of consistency by feel. I’m curious to see what it does to the speeds though!

I can feel the difference if I just moly a neck and mandrel it. Or if I brush the neck/ moly the neck and then mandrel. But different forces to put the mandrel through.

A lot this stuff is by “feel” unfortunately. Whether you seen it in target, I can’t say 100%. But I can easily feel inconsistencies when running mandrels and seating bullets with different prep styles. So I’ve settled on one that “feels” the most consistent and doesn’t damage the insides of the necks.

 

[huntnful]

I’m not the most savvy on the video/youtube stuff. But I took these videos last night and just combined them with an app I downloaded. But the app makes the view more narrow unfortunately.

 

[Lawnboi]

Iv also gone to mainly carbide mandrels due to the galling issues.

Little more expensive.

Same with sizing dies, SAC with the carbide mandrel/decapper keeps things nice and smooth.

Is the moly you use a liquid? Might need to try it. Graphite didn’t do it for me. I wipe imperial on the rim right now but I’m all for something that’s less gummy.

 

[huntnful]

Iv also gone to mainly carbide mandrels due to the galling issues.

Little more expensive.

Same with sizing dies, SAC with the carbide mandrel/decapper keeps things nice and smooth.

Is the moly you use a liquid? Might need to try it. Graphite didn’t do it for me. I wipe imperial on the rim right now but I’m all for something that’s less gummy.

I have carbide for every caliber, but they only come in one size that I’ve found (.001 under caliber I think?) And I like a little less neck tension than they provide in most cartridges.

Moly Dry Neck Lube

We tested multiple different types of dry neck lube and came to the conclusion that moly performed the best for us! The Moly Dry Neck Lube can be used for case expansion with mandrels, neck sizing, lubing bullets prior to seating, among other operations. Works really well with all of our...

21stcenturyinnovation.com

 

[Lawnboi]

I have carbide for every caliber, but they only come in one size that I’ve found (.001 under caliber I think?) And I like a little less neck tension than they provide in most cartridges.

Moly Dry Neck Lube

We tested multiple different types of dry neck lube and came to the conclusion that moly performed the best for us! The Moly Dry Neck Lube can be used for case expansion with mandrels, neck sizing, lubing bullets prior to seating, among other operations. Works really well with all of our...

21stcenturyinnovation.com

SINCLAIR INTERNATIONAL CARBIDE NECK TURNING MANDRELS | Brownells

Check out the SINCLAIR INTERNATIONAL available Online at Brownells Today and many more Case Neck Turning products are available in our Reloading Department.

www.brownells.com

Brownells turning (.002 under) mandrels is what I use. The 21st century black nitride mandrels work well too but carbide can’t be beat.

 

[huntnful]

SINCLAIR INTERNATIONAL CARBIDE NECK TURNING MANDRELS | Brownells

Check out the SINCLAIR INTERNATIONAL available Online at Brownells Today and many more Case Neck Turning products are available in our Reloading Department.

www.brownells.com

Brownells turning (.002 under) mandrels is what I use. The 21st century black nitride mandrels work well too but carbide can’t be beat.

Appreciate the link!!

 

[ID_Matt]

Appreciate you posting this and also like the larger sample sizes... as I think we all know when trying to show a meaningful difference, 3 shot groups don't cut it.

Larger ES/SD on the first sample, wondering how much of that is barrel break in or speed up. Will be fun to see if it stabilizes with a load change OR the barrel just needing settled in.

 

[Bluumoon]

Habit and bore scoping mostly. Most barrels grab a shit load of copper in the first 10 rounds. Because the bullets are getting scarred by the edges of the freshly machined lands and then deposit a ton of copper. I’ve seen this 100% is several barrels.

Once that initial copper is out, it looks like maybe 30 rounds later there’s another decent amount in there. And after that copper is removed, it can take hundreds of rounds to deposit as much copper as those first 10 rounds.

Whether is really would have affected this barrel IDK. But I’ve seen copper fouled barrels shoot like shit, and then be cleaned, and be back to stacking nice groups. So I just do it, instead of testing it with every barrel.

Now that you say that, I have a rifle that I ran some copper bullets through and haven’t found a load I like. I still have cleaning stuff, worth a shot.

 

[Okie_Poke]

Following along to learn something.

 

[huntnful]

Appreciate you posting this and also like the larger sample sizes... as I think we all know when trying to show a meaningful difference, 3 shot groups don't cut it.

Larger ES/SD on the first sample, wondering how much of that is barrel break in or speed up. Will be fun to see if it stabilizes with a load change OR the barrel just needing settled in.

Absolutely. I’m also curious to see when I repeat things with once fired brass. The case filling the chamber and getting the carbon in the necks definitely adds a level consistency, but I’m definitely want to see what that difference really is.

Also I’ll see if I can shrink that group with any changes. I think I’m into the lands a little bit (which I don’t mind) but I’ll actually find them soon enough and test a load that is .010-.020 off or so.