Neck Tension Progression

[Vaughan]

In my experiences, the neck turning, primer pocket uniforming, flash hole deburring, sorting cases by weight, sorting bullets by weight and the rest that goes along with it are good for fine tuning a bench rest gun that already shoots .200" groups at 100 yards and improving that to .189" groups and not much else. It absolutely won't help a gun and load combination that is only shooting 1 MOA or even 1/2 MOA. So for hunting it is a waste of time. But I still do it anyway some times.

I shoot 1/2 moa groups with some reproducibility and I do a little dance, so I'm happy to read this.....

[Ringo]

In my experiences, the neck turning, primer pocket uniforming, flash hole deburring, sorting cases by weight, sorting bullets by weight and the rest that goes along with it are good for fine tuning a bench rest gun that already shoots .200" groups at 100 yards and improving that to .189" groups and not much else. It absolutely won't help a gun and load combination that is only shooting 1 MOA or even 1/2 MOA. So for hunting it is a waste of time. But I still do it anyway some times.

I agree. Still, I pay attention to these things under the (probably mistaken) assumption that anything I can eliminate for the load gives me more room for error.

The reality is that people hunted with 2 MOA (or worse) rifles for decades and still had meat.

That knowledge doesn't stop me from still seeking better and better - even for my hunting loads. Pretty much, all of my load development is for hunting - even if I develop loads for calibers I will likely never take into the field!