reloading help.

[auquhollie]

A few questions to the more experianced ones.....

 

1) I neck size my brass with wilson bushing dies & redding bushing dies. I clean all the necks inside and when i seat the bullets with the wilson seater some of them go in sweet and some of them are tight. Why is this ?.

 

2) When i seat said bullets in the wilson dies some of them seat to exactly what i want then there are a few that sprong back a few thow. Is this an indication that the tip is touching the powder and compressing the load ?.

 

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[Elwood]

A few questions to the more experianced ones.....

 

1) I neck size my brass with wilson bushing dies & redding bushing dies. I clean all the necks inside and when i seat the bullets with the wilson seater some of them go in sweet and some of them are tight. Why is this ?.

 

2) When i seat said bullets in the wilson dies some of them seat to exactly what i want then there are a few that sprong back a few thow. Is this an indication that the tip is touching the powder and compressing the load ?.

 

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I can't help you with question one, but I would be interested in the answer as I have come across this as well. I would have said it's neck thickness but my brass is neck turned so it should be uniformed.

 

Question two, measure the bullets ogive out of the box, I gaurantee you will get different measurements by several thou at least, if I'm plus 1 or minus 1 thou of what I need I'm normally happy.

[auquhollie]

I can't help you with question one, but I would be interested in the answer as I have come across this as well. I would have said it's neck thickness but my brass is neck turned so it should be uniformed.

 

Question two, measure the bullets ogive out of the box, I gaurantee you will get different measurements by several thou at least, if I'm plus 1 or minus 1 thou of what I need I'm normally happy.

 

Yeah im using neck turned brass as well but to be honest thats the outside of the case neck so should not really affect the neck tension. Should it?.

 

Yeah im normally happy as well but with my 243 ive found a super accurate load with the bullet kissing the lands. Now 1 or 2 thow either way is either jump or crush and there for moves the impact point. This load is doing 3530FPS with an ES of 5 shoots 5 shot bug holes as well and this is with the 105 berger (if im bang on with the seating).

 

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[snap_shot]

Yeah im using neck turned brass as well but to be honest thats the outside of the case neck so should not really affect the neck tension. Should it?.

 

Yeah im normally happy as well but with my 243 ive found a super accurate load with the bullet kissing the lands. Now 1 or 2 thow either way is either jump or crush and there for moves the impact point. This load is doing 3530FPS with an ES of 5 shoots 5 shot bug holes as well and this is with the 105 berger (if im bang on with the seating).

 

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Any chance you could share the info on this load mate...... i would be very intrested,

 

cheers

 

Snap.

[Alycidon]

I think this is caused by spring back in the case neck after sizing. I have measured my bullets in all sorts of ways, length and weight mainly but I have never found any variance in OD, perhaps I should be more pedantic about it.

 

I have a prod made up with .0005 steps on it for one rifle together with a series of bushes each .0005 tighter than the next. Measure each case after sizing with the prod and resize with a smaller bush any that are not within tollerance. I am currently loading new lathe turned necks and once fired for it, maybe 1 in 5 need another resize.

 

 

I suspect your differing lengths are caused by the plastic tips, I use a measurement to the ogeeve these days as it is more accurate than an OAL length when using Vmax etc.

 

A

[rabbit fingers]

Do you keep your brass in batches that have been fired the same number of times? If they are mixed the brass will be harder on those that have been fired most often. When neck sizing I found that on older cases there is more resistance when I drop the ram after sizing as if the neck is gripping the die as you pull it out, it is into these cases that the bullets are easier to seat.

[auquhollie]

Yeah im using neck turned brass as well but to be honest thats the outside of the case neck so should not really affect the neck tension. Should it?.

 

Yeah im normally happy as well but with my 243 ive found a super accurate load with the bullet kissing the lands. Now 1 or 2 thow either way is either jump or crush and there for moves the impact point. This load is doing 3530FPS with an ES of 5 shoots 5 shot bug holes as well and this is with the 105 berger (if im bang on with the seating).

 

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Sorry that was with the 87 v max but all the same its a sweet varminting round. Ill dig out my book later on and share the load.

 

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[Andrew]

This O.A.L. variance is pretty common when using standard reloading. If the seating stem is working on the ogive and not the tip, then you have little to fear with regards to accuracy. It's the ogive that is important. (Other than magazine length, and related issues) JMHO~Andrew

[Jingzy]

I may be missing the point on your second question Ads, but I think you are saying your bullet is coming back out increasing the length of the OAL occasionally. I dont know if a compressed load will cause this, it is possible. I have never used Wilson dies before, could it be them that are faulty. I had a similar problem with some dies before where the seating depth was inconsistent, once I got a good set of competition dies, the problem stopped.

 

J

[Alycidon]

I may be missing the point on your second question Ads, but I think you are saying your bullet is coming back out increasing the length of the OAL occasionally. I dont know if a compressed load will cause this, it is possible. I have never used Wilson dies before, could it be them that are faulty. I had a similar problem with some dies before where the seating depth was inconsistent, once I got a good set of competition dies, the problem stopped.

 

J

 

 

Assuming you have 1 or 2 thou of grip on the bullet there should be no way that the powder is forcing the bullet out. I think the discrepancies are in the OAL and as previously explained this is caused by the plastic tips being slightly different lengths.

 

How do you know the bullet is being pushed out?, the only way would be to measure to the ogeeve as it comes out of the seater die then again a few minutes or hours later. At the end of the day unless you are shooting BR then an odd thou or two even if it is happening is not going to make a lot of difference.

 

The bullet should given the correct twist rate perform.

 

A

[Cornishman]

I've experienced the same issue with noticeable differences in the force needed to seat bullets. Having read articles that suggest this translates into shot-to-shot variances in velocity clearly this is something to be avoided.

 

I've not got the end of experimenting yet but having noticed that seating force increased considerably when I started using a sonic case cleaner I thought maybe the necks were 'too' clean and that I'd stripped away the carbon residue that had previously assisted smooth seating. I used some graphite powder to lubricate the necks and there was a big difference.

 

Having got on the track of this issue I then did some other experiments. I trim my cases regularly and then use a chamfering tool to takeaway the burrs. I thought this was enough but when I put a 20x jeweller's loup on the necks, Holy Sh*t, they were rough. So I put a bronze brush in a battery drill, wound on some fine grade wire wool and polished up the inside and end of the necks. Just a moment or two for each case. All bullets now seat beautifully and they look awesome under a magnifying glass.

 

There's more experimentation to do, like maybe putting some graphite on the bronze brush, checking velocities over a chrono etc. But shooting is a mental sport and at the moment my head is right with all of this. The loading is smooth and my head tells me the ammo is good.

 

Hope this helps or at least provides some ideas.

 

Cornishman.

[auquhollie]

Assuming you have 1 or 2 thou of grip on the bullet there should be no way that the powder is forcing the bullet out. I think the discrepancies are in the OAL and as previously explained this is caused by the plastic tips being slightly different lengths.

 

How do you know the bullet is being pushed out?, the only way would be to measure to the ogeeve as it comes out of the seater die then again a few minutes or hours later. At the end of the day unless you are shooting BR then an odd thou or two even if it is happening is not going to make a lot of difference.

 

The bullet should given the correct twist rate perform.

 

A

 

 

I do measure to the ogive and have never seen problems like this before.

 

I've experienced the same issue with noticeable differences in the force needed to seat bullets. Having read articles that suggest this translates into shot-to-shot variances in velocity clearly this is something to be avoided.

 

I've not got the end of experimenting yet but having noticed that seating force increased considerably when I started using a sonic case cleaner I thought maybe the necks were 'too' clean and that I'd stripped away the carbon residue that had previously assisted smooth seating. I used some graphite powder to lubricate the necks and there was a big difference.

 

Having got on the track of this issue I then did some other experiments. I trim my cases regularly and then use a chamfering tool to takeaway the burrs. I thought this was enough but when I put a 20x jeweller's loup on the necks, Holy Sh*t, they were rough. So I put a bronze brush in a battery drill, wound on some fine grade wire wool and polished up the inside and end of the necks. Just a moment or two for each case. All bullets now seat beautifully and they look awesome under a magnifying glass.

There's more experimentation to do, like maybe putting some graphite on the bronze brush, checking velocities over a chrono etc. But shooting is a mental sport and at the moment my head is right with all of this. The loading is smooth and my head tells me the ammo is good.

 

Hope this helps or at least provides some ideas.

 

Cornishman.

 

I done this last night and its sorted the problem. Never really clean the case neacks apart from the tumbler and they were caked in shite .

 

Cheers for all the help on this one.

 

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[ds1]

Neck pressure will also vary over time - brass tends to "spring back" a little - so say you neck size some cases and leave them a few days they will have a different tension compared to ones that have been neck sized and reloaded straight away.

 

I believe there is an article on 6mmbr about this. Someone does a pressure indicator guage on the seating die as well.

 

David.

[eldon]

Don't think this is the problem in this case but I have read somewhere that powder compression can spring back the OAL.

 

The article went on to say that a measurement was made immediately the round was loaded and then remeasured some time (next day?) later to see if there were a difference.

 

If the spring back had been instant how would you know ? and presumably the culprit would have been inadequate neck tension.

[menial 1]

I seated some 105grn A-max for my 6BR last week using Wilson dies and set them at 1.790 oal measured to the ogive, however, on a random check some of loaded rounds measured 1.820 but were actually shorter when measured for complete (base to tip) length than those that measured 1.790,

all were from the same box. Has anybody come across this, does it mean I have to measure every bullet from base to ogive to achieve uniformity? Hope my description makes sense.

Your thoughts would be most welcome.

Pete.

[baldie]

That happens with a lot more more boxes of bullets than people think , Pete. Even the best match grade stuff.

There are only two approaches really. Either measure every individual bullet, and sort into batches...or forget it, and shoot them. I suppose if you have done every last other trick like weight batching brass, etc etc, then you have to do it really, otherwise it would niggle you to death.

Personally, i think variances in powder, primers etc, would negate any advantage gained .

I also think we sometimes go too far with our reloading, when the time would be better spent, on a windy range, getting in some practise.

Nowt wrong with being a perfectionist however...at least one knows , its the rifleman then i suppose.

 

Ads...try annealing your necks. It will return the good "grip".

[Alycidon]

I sort my bullets by weight and it I have a big batch (I do Vmax in 500s) then further sort the bigger lots after weighing by ogeeve length. With a 100 or 200 I just sort by weight.

 

The other day I was trialing some loads for accuracy, at 100 yards ALL the bullets (Bergers) went into about .7 overall with 34 loads from 28 to 31 grains. As Dave said perhaps we go to far sometimes with reloading and in this case by weighing each powder charge. I have now dropped 7 rounds and intend to velocity spread check them against measured rounds. Last time I did this the dropped charge rounds were easily best. Makes me wonder how good my RCBS electronic scale is.

 

A

[menial 1]

Thaks for the replies men. The reason for measuring was I was going to set to dead zero and chrono the load ( 30.2 grn Viht 133, 105 A-max) for use with exbal, I shot the rounds anyway and there was very little difference to the others. Sometimes when you put them in the box you just know something is a little different to the others in the box and start a little investigation, the batch is not quite as uniform as you thought. I just thought that a 30thou difference seems a lot.

Something I have noticed is when testing loads, sometimes the groups with the larger ES produce better groups than those with a tight ES, or perhaps as has been said there are more stray weights and lengths in the boxes of bullets than we think.

Perhaps I'll just have to find a new tabespoon to dispense my powder charges instead

Pete.

[1967spud]

which do you thonk is more critical , uniform weight or a uniform over all lenth of the tips

[Andrew]

which do you thonk is more critical , uniform weight or a uniform over all lenth of the tips

 

I think it depends on the use and the amount of variance in each.

 

I know that in the old days, back when I was first reloading, the Old Timers never measured to the Ogive, or the bullet tip when considering seating. They measured seating depth; how far the base of the bullet seated into the case. I know it seems like the same thing but obviously, it isn't. Load data would have a bullet seated to (say) .300" depth VS any particular OAL . It makes sense, too. Seating depth effects pressure and pull weight (via tension by neck area) provided all else is good. Of course, they were slaves to their equipment, just like we are, and had to deal with inaccuracies. The guy who taught me reloading was a seriously Old Timer and he had a dummy case in which he could seat a bullet and it would cause a rod to protrude from the base of the casing. He would take a measurement off of that with a depth micrometer. His seating stem was machined so that it never bore on the tip and he carefully recorded the bullet seating depth of each load he was testing. Sounds a bit archaic but on a good day he could put ten, 30 caliber 165 grain Sierras into a 3.5" circle at 200 yards with an iron sighted O3-A3 30-06 Service rifle. He put a great deal of stock in seating depth and none in OAL. Food for thought....~Andrew

[menial 1]

I'm not at all bothered if the tips of the bullets reach further up the barrel, but what does concern me is if I'm seating a long bullet like 105 A-max into a 6BR case which is reasonably full of powder already, 30thou extra seating depth will create quite a pressure change. The weight of the bullets if they only vary by a small amount doesn't bother me as much as a uniform seating depth in the interest of safe loads. I don't measure to the bullet tip as they vary greatly but would hope that measuring to the ogive would afford me some sort of uniform rounds.

Pete.

[Alycidon]

which do you thonk is more critical , uniform weight or a uniform over all lenth of the tips

 

 

IMHO weight.

 

A