Take the following as an explanation on my part Magster. I used to only ever neck resize bud until I got into AR platforms and CSR, although the FTR World Champ was also caught out in a comp with a round that would not chamber.Originally Posted by mag44uk
I think you need to get caught out in to see a need sometimes. Because all brass is not necessarily equal then neither is the hardness. this means that the spring back may well not be as expected. You will find this out when you think your cocking lever is all the way forward but lo, the damned thing wont fire. Too late, exposure missed.
I/We dont have the luxury of forward assisting with every use of the cocking handle, you can, and I do occasionally out of habit, but generally you want minimal movement.
There is nothing wrong with neck sizing and I will do that for my AR10 and No4, but FL sizing seems to be the norm for most of my colleagues within CSR. Sadly because the courses of fire can be quite rapid, the chambers get quite hot which means the things not only burn out quicker but also that they extraction can get stiff. The latter is a pain, particularly on the last stage of the urban match where you need to fire 10 rounds rapid over 3 exposures. IF you are tugging away at the cocking handle and it does not want to go, you are now off target and your NPA has gone. As the AR10 will also be used for CSR/SO I may well end up FL sizing.
I have found that in FL sizing my cases the rifle cycles like a biathlon rifle with the lightest flick of my fingers. This also means that the bolt may short stroke, even more reason to have some leeway.
This all depends on your chamber as well. Mine will take both 5.56x45 NATO and .223 Rem and cycle both easily, but not all ARs will. Some will get quite sticky with RG, FN, FNM etc.
Funnily enough my brass will do 7 or so firings as well, although they dont get used in matches much after 6 and to be honest will as likely get scrapped as GGG 5.56 brass is easy to get hold of.
As regards never FL Resizing, well it depends on the need. IF you use brass once fired and picked up from the range, you really need to FL resize it before you load if for your rifle. This point was brought home to me (not that I needed it bringing home) recently in 2 ways. I sold my old M67 Kongsberg with some handloads. The buyer tried to fire these rounds in his AI and could not even chamber them. I was also given a large bucket of rather nice nickel plated federal .308 brass which should be great in the AR10. I FL sized a batch for load testing in a new rifle, so they need to chamber and must be at mag length. These rounds all came from a handful of well maintained AI rifles used at work, so I know they are in limits. The effort taken to FL resize went from little to...."Jeez is this thing really .308 Win?". This was with decent polished Forster Dies, although I usually use redding for the 5.56.
It would have been easier just to say...."sometimes the end justifies the means". It is more of a faff with lube etc, but I am used to it now
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