Carbide Expander Balls for Resizing

[Mike_Mills]

Au contraire. Any dented necks are quickly made round once again using any tapered tool such as a punch, or the knife sharpener that I use. Any "non-uniformities" in the ID of the neck are removed when inserting a bullet, as it acts in the very same way as an expander mandrel, in moving any ID inconsistencies to the OD. Have had 6+ years of experience in reloading this way for 1,000 yard competition, and have zero use for expander balls.

Don

Then again, you are using a punch or knife sharpener to perform the very same operation. So, in that sense, you do have an "expander ball", it is just different than the one RCBS and Redding provide. You are welcome to do so, but it's not as if the function doesn't need to be performed. You said as much, yourself. Why do you prefer that method?

Personally, I prefer not to use my bullets as an expander ball. I prefer to use an expander ball as an expander ball and prefer an expander ball over a "punch or knife sharpener". If I were performing a manual case neck expansion, I would use my Sinclair expander mandrel, held in its die. This yields VERY uniform neck interior dimensions over the entire length of the neck. The die/mandrel are press-mounted so variations due to tipping (typical of a manual operation) do not occur.