Hornady Rifle Die set not come with a neck sizer?

I'm looking at starting to reload .308 and from what I can tell the hornady rifle set just come with a bullet seater and full length sizer. Don't I need to only neck size so the brass is fire formed and more accurate? All my other stuff is hornady and has worked great so I want to stick with them.

I full length everything, every time. Set the full length die to bump the shoulders of the fired brass .002".

Neck only sizing will eventually prevent a case from chambering and/ or prevent one from ejecting after a firing.

^^
What he said.

This is a variation of "partial" full-length sizing and is what I've done for many years. It's a good technique.

Yep ^^^

How do you control how much you "bump" the shoulders?

Measure three to five pieces of your brass with a head space gauge attached to your caliper. Screw the die down into the press until the die contacts the shoulder of the brass by hand tightening. Progressively size, measure again, screw the die in farther, size, measure again. Repeat as necessary until the die has pushed the shoulder .002" from the fired measurement. Lock the die ring down and get another piece of brass, measure before and after sizing. Tweaks may need to be made to the die on the first few pieces of brass.

Keep this in mind when adjusting your die deeper or shallower in the press: turning your die just 5 degrees will raise or lower it 0.001 inch. That's not much turn at all. When the second hand on a clocks ticks forward each second, it moves 6 degrees. If you don't believe that, here is how to figure it out...

14 turns in lower the die 1 inch.

14 turns = 360 x 14 = 5040 degrees

So, 5040 degrees gives 1 inch movement

Divide both by 1000

5040 / 1000 = 5.04 AND 1 inch / 1000 = 0.001 inch

So, 5.04 degrees rotation of the die raises or lowers it 0.001 inch.

Another point, and I have had an awful hard time getting folks to recognize this...unless the shoulder angle of your sizing die EXACTLY matches your rifle's chamber (and therefore your fire-formed brass), relying strictly on measurements may result in bumping the shoulder back more than necessary. Measuring during the adjustment process will probably make it much easier to keep track of where you are, but that's really about it. When I set my dies up I turn the die about 0.001 inch at a time and keep going until I can feel the resized round chamber just a smidgeon more easily, as in how much effort it takes to close the bolt.

Good stuff, Rverrider!

I had forgotten about those numbers.

Curiosity question here. Has anyone neck sized only over and over using the same brass until they have serious difficulty closing the bolt?

Just wondering how many times you found you could neck size until you HAD to bump shoulder.

I think a lot of that depends on the cartridge and rifle. For my old 7mm-08 I FL size after 3 or 4 neck sized reloads using the FL die set shallow enough to not touch the shoulder. I let the rifle tell me when it is time, will the cases chamber without bumping the shoulder, if so I just necksize. If I do not want to go through that step then will either FL size or partial size as RR described.

With the LEE Collet dies I have gone as many as 6 reloads before needing to bump the shoulders.

I recently acquired some Lee Collet dies for neck sizing most of the rifle calibers I load. So far I've only used the .222 die a few times so I still have no idea how many times. I don't push the .222 hard, though. I also have the collet die for .280, which I DO push somewhat. I expect to see a difference when I get around to using it.

I have thought about taking one of the presses, dies and some premeasured powder charges to the range with the 6.5-284 and shoot a group using the same piece of brass and see how many times I can reload it with the Collet die and what the group would look like just using one piece of brass. Would all be cold bore shots by the time I reload between each shot.

Thanks for the info! I never knew about bumping the shoulders a certain amount. What case length headspace gauge do y'all use? I saw Hornady has one thats a lot like the bullet cooperator.

Hornady sells them as do other companies and they work

Poor mans version, use a 45ACP case.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2007/07/tech-tip-poor-mans-headspace-gauge/

Sweet thanks for all the info guys.

That as the reason I brought it up really. I have done sorta what you are talking about. I took 9 pieces of 17 Rem brass and neck sized over and over as that was all the brass I had right then. It never got to the point of being hard to chamber and the necks started splitting at 9 reloads so I trashed all.
Repeated again with 10 pieces same results although I lost a couple to loose primers along the way to 9 reloads.
I have 221 FB brass that has been neck sized a bunch and while it is a little stiffer than original stuff I have never felt I needed to bump shoulders.
Not trying to make any particular point except don't think if you so neck sized that after a couple of loads you WILL have to FL size

DStroud, do you anneal your brass?

At that time I did not but now I do about every 3 reloads on most brass. I still don't mess with .223 brass as I have so much of it.