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Posted: 3/27/2012 2:31:55 PM EDT
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Help a newb out please.
I'm trying to seat a bunch of pulled and resized SS109's, they vary in length a great deal. Of the ten that I've seated they vary in oal between 2.245 to 2.270. I'm loading trimmed brass at 1.755. I'm afraid that the deep seating ones will be over pressure due to the fact that they are compressing 24.5 GRNs of varget. Anyone have any suggestions on loading these to the same oal? Do I have to go through and sort all the bullets by length? Running a set of Dillon dies. Thanks |
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This is caused by the bullets, not the press or the dies. When you buy salvaged bullets you will have a lot of problems with that, generally speaking MOST commercial bullets don't have a big problem with consistency. Quality is the determining factor, higher quality bullets have less problems, lower quality bullets have a lot of problems. |
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I am still fairly new to the reloading game so I will offer my 2cents.
The bullets you are using, do they have the same wide variance in their size? If the brass is pretty close in size I would think the weak spot, so to speak, is either the bullets themselves or the die you are using to seat them. I use Lee dies, so I am not familiar with Dillon at all. Is there a way to "reset" the die and test with some cases that are past their life (minus primer and powder ofcourse)? *I will note I haven't reloaded 223 yet. Craig |
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your seating depth is determined by what you set your die to seat them at not the bullet. No matter what size bullet you use you will still have the same overall length. The depther the bullet seats will be different maybe but not the overall length of the case.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you what I think your trying to say is that when you seat the bullet to the canalure that your overall length is different, correct? I Still can't see how it would be off that much. That's quite a bit of difference there. There are some things that can throw you off a little. Did you check to make sure all your cases were cut to the same length? If not when trying to seat to a canalure you will vary in OAL if the bullet isn't the same size. Did you make sure there wasn't any obstructions in your die? This could cause differences. Have you measured the bullets and what are there size differences in overall length? Did you make sure your die is locked down and so is the seater plug inside? This will throw if off some but still I don't think it would affect it .3 of an inch. You also need to check the distance from the canalure to the bottom of the bullet. If this is the same on all of them that your bullets that have an overall length of 2.45 aren't seated any deeper than the 2.7 ones are if your seating to the canalure only your OAL is different which would could cause accuracy issues. 2.7" OAL is too long and may not feed reliably. I know some benchrest shooters that load long but usually shoot 1 bullet at a time and don't feed with a magazine. Maybe they would know what OAL would fit in a mag and still feed reliably. |
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"You also need to check the distance from the canalure to the bottom of the bullet. If this is the same on all of them that your bullets that have an overall length of 2.45 aren't seated any deeper than the 2.7 ones are if your seating to the canalure only your OAL is different which would could cause accuracy issues."
I checked this and best I can tell mid cannelure to the base are all fairly consistent at .400", so I suppose that I don't need to worry about over pressure. Yea the high end of the coal at 2.270 was a concern, it won't run through my magazine. The mixed coal seem to be from the inconsistent lengths of the bullets on the tip side. It seems that all I can do is run the ones over 2.260 out side of a magazine to prevent over seating them? Also when setting my seating die for these, should I choose a long bullet for setup? It appears my only other option would be to leave the bullet seater deep or loose and check each bullet to make sure it's seating mid cannelure. Average bullet over all length varies about .010" |
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Quoted: your seating depth is determined by what you set your die to seat them at not the bullet. No matter what size bullet you use you will still have the same overall length. Did you check to make sure all your cases were cut to the same length? If not when trying to seat to a canalure you will vary in OAL if the bullet isn't the same size. Considering the above statements there needs to be a lot of clarification, on rifle cartridges the bullet seating die indexes on the ogive of the bullet, not the tip, if the ogive is not consistent, the OAL will float around. Surplus bullets are almost always mixed lots, and are very inconsistent in their shape, leading to inconsistent OAL. The length of your case has absolutely no bearing on the OAL of the cartridge, the OAL is determined by the setting of the bullet seating plug and the shape of the bullet. The only time the length of the cartridge would come into play is probably if it is too short to hold the bullet at the depth set by the die, which would mean it would be totally unsuitable for reloading. If you are chasing a cannelure on a mixed lot of bullets, you are wasting your time. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
your seating depth is determined by what you set your die to seat them at not the bullet. No matter what size bullet you use you will still have the same overall length. Did you check to make sure all your cases were cut to the same length? If not when trying to seat to a canalure you will vary in OAL if the bullet isn't the same size. Considering the above statements there needs to be a lot of clarification, on rifle cartridges the bullet seating die indexes on the ogive of the bullet, not the tip, if the ogive is not consistent, the OAL will float around. Surplus bullets are almost always mixed lots, and are very inconsistent in their shape, leading to inconsistent OAL. The length of your case has absolutely no bearing on the OAL of the cartridge, the OAL is determined by the setting of the bullet seating plug and the shape of the bullet. The only time the length of the cartridge would come into play is probably if it is too short to hold the bullet at the depth set by the die, which would mean it would be totally unsuitable for reloading. If you are chasing a cannelure on a mixed lot of bullets, you are wasting your time. If he is trying to seat on the canalure and the shell cases aren't the same size then he would get different OAL but he would have to change the seating depth on the die which to me would give away I had a problem somewhere but he said he was new |
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Measuring the OAL from case head to tip of bullet is a waist of time and will drive you nuts. If you are concerned about your OAL which you should be the only way to get somewhat exact is a bullet comparator which measures off the ogive of the bullet and this measurement can be different as well but its usually better then the tip.
I had wild OAL's and Comp OAL's with Speer Grand Slam bullets so I started to measure from the base of the bullet to the ogive with the comparator and found large swings in this length. I sorted the bullets by length groups and set my die to load at the mean for a length group this way I know my Comp OAL should be within the + or - of the group. Make sure that when everything is set that the + side of the group is not going to be to long and jammed into the rifling, I don't have to worry about this so much as I am seating to Mag length which is shorter then chamber length. I only do the above for my bolt hunting rifles and don't worry about plinking or 223 loads, for these set the die for an average Comp OAL and as I load I check to make sure the distance stays somewhat consistent. |
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Quoted:
Measuring the OAL from case head to tip of bullet is a waist of time and will drive you nuts. If you are concerned about your OAL which you should be the only way to get somewhat exact is a bullet comparator which measures off the ogive of the bullet and this measurement can be different as well but its usually better then the tip. Although I agree with the underlying point, as stated, this is not true. If you are going to load the ammo into a magazine, you'd better be very careful with real OAL. This is especially true for HPBT bullets, whose tips can vary in length by quite a bit. You have to ensure your longest cartridge (hence, your longest bullet) is shorter than your magazine. When measuring FMJ projectiles, the base of the bullet is rarely consistent (irregularities in the lead filling). What is important for these is the shape of the ogive. FMJ's usually give repeatable OAL unless you have mixed lots (from different bullet forming dies). |
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