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Thread: Let's talk about precision reloading

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by eperk View Post
    Maybe you don't play well with others.
    Normally true... but in this case.. No... not at all. I've gone back there 2 or 3 times and posted like a Saint. If you show brain cell activity, they get REALLY suspicious. It's kind of funny.
    "What would a $2,000 Geissele Super Duty do that a $500 PSA door buster on Black Friday couldn't do?" - Stopsign32v

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by QuietShootr View Post
    Windex poisoning.
    True. The Reloading Mod didn't strike me as a bad dude... but he let a lot of monumentally retarded posts go unchecked.... I mean just BAD info, where someone should have stepped in and said "Read more, post less".

    I suppose no one can watch everything all the time though.
    "What would a $2,000 Geissele Super Duty do that a $500 PSA door buster on Black Friday couldn't do?" - Stopsign32v

  3. #23
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    SW,
    Interesting and broad based post. That being said - when you get into precision reloading, there are very distinct processes that are specific to bolt & gas guns.

    So, if up front your looking at the GAP10, then specific items on your list are applicable and different ones are more appropriate for a bolt gun.

    I would also offer this one word as the hallmark for anything and everything that is remotely connected to precision / accuracy based reloading practices:

    CONSISTENCY - write that on the back of your hand, backwards on your forehead - so you can read it in the mirror and every flat surface on your reloading bench.
    Its that important.

    - Turning case necks
    Don't bother for either - ESPECIALLY a gas gun. Recipe for major problems. For a bolt gun, this is only needed when your chamber has been cut with a custom reamer designed for specific clearance/dimensioned brass... read high end bench/LR guns. Turning necks is a whole other world and it opens up your wallet and drains your time. I turn necks on a custom / precision .308 40X w/ a 20" Krieger. The reamer is a .339 neck. I turn Lapua to .0145" This gives me .002 clearance. It's finicky - I have to keep the rifle /chamber clean and turning the brass is a labor intensive effort. I use K&M turners and a powered collet to spin the brass. Results??? I'd be hard pressed to quantify it other than it shoots under .5 MOA with boring regularity. When I say .5, I mean .5 - like 30 or 40 rounds will go into a group that I can cover with a quarter (.955 if you're wondering)
    Note: Personal rant / pet peeve - all to often you'll see claims that "My M740A6 blah blah blah shoots .5 MOA or .250 MOA all day long...these claims and the trigger pullers themselves are seriously suspect and are generally the product of a one time 3 shot group.
    Remember the important word? Will your rifle / ammo & you CONSISTENTLY generate .5 MOA groups day in day out? That is in reality, a rare feat that lives in the stratosphere of custom guns. I've shot .3 or .4" groups with a rack grade M70 in 30-06 with hunting ammo - BUT they were 3 shot groups and I can't even remotely consistently repeat it. Is it a .5moa gun - sure on the internet.....in reality - not a chance.
    Rant off.



    - Using bench rest primers VS standard primers - experimentation will show results. In a gas gun - don't bother. Too many other variables. I shot NM High Power Service Rifle for nearly 20 yrs. Made High Master shooting across the course 200/300/600yds - I never ever shot BR or Match primers at 600yds - ever. I shot primed LC 556 brass with the standard GI M-41 primer. Guns shot MOA or better - meaning if I did my part and mother nature didn't offer up a big huff n' puff - the ammo rifle me combo could hold the x ring.
    Now - different story at 1K - I always used CCI BR primers for that ammo - but we are talking about HIGHLY developed VLD based loads. At 1k a 20fps velocity dip will take you out of the 10 ring. These loads were HIGHLY developed and had velocity extreme spreads (22rds min) of less than 15fps. I rarely lost a point to elevation. SD's ran in the single digits.
    CONSISTENCY


    - Using competition seating dies over standard dies - ABSOLUTELY. I load on Redding dies almost exclusively - the adjustability / repeatability is gold. This applies to seaters, neck sizers, body dies and bump dies (shoulder HS) Redding stuff is ground / reamed to superb concentricity - using crappy standard dies vs competition ones can be measured in TIR at the contact point on the bullet ogive. Personally on my 1K ammo - nothing over .001 goes in the chamber. .002 is the cull point for 600yd ammo and .003 is 200/300 ammo. Beyond that - it goes to the practice bin or my son to kill dirt. That being said - he doesn't get much ammo to shoot dirt with. It is rare that I cull 1 or 2% out of a 500 cartridge load session.
    Also - use good strong RIGID presses. I load all my ammo on Redding T-6 & T-7 turret presses. I have a box of all brands of cheap single stage presses that I bought, used and learned the had way. Some are relegated to nothing more that punching primers or pulling bullets.

    - Crimping and not crimping - NEVER EVER crimp a match bullet EVER. The only time you should even consider it is is the bullet of choice has a canelure in it. If it doesn't - then don't - that simple. Some of the 77gr Mk262Mod1 ammo has a (cough) canelure...ok if you want to call it that - it is the slightest of slight canelures and offers just enough "bite" so that the 77's won't set back under recoil / FA fire. Don't even consider, if they still sel them - the tools that will canelure a bullet - waste of $ and you're wrecking a good match bullet.

    - Loading to be just off the lands or kissing the lands - or INTO the lands. Very very complicated topic. I start ALL ammo development with the bullet touching the lands - charges reduced accordingly. This way you are puting the pressure spike up front in your load development. Once you develop the powder type / charge weight, you can use seating depth to tune the load. SMK's are built with relatively thick jackets - so they very tolerant of jump. But..you find that different rifles, barrels, bullets etc have their own individuals likes / dislikes. For a gas gun, I tend to stay away from a load that has to be jammed into the lands. But there are exceptions - my 1K LR service rifle - AR shot 90gr JLK VLD's .005 into the lands - I had to be very very careful if I had to unload a live round - the possibility of extracting the case and leaving the bullet in the throat is real - along with all the powder in the bolt lugs...not cool. Some barrels have a lead / throat cut so long that you CAN'T load to touch the lands - in that case - load to the longest length you can and still feed through the mag. Witht he GAP10 - you'lll be limited to internal mag dimensions. Bolt guns can be single loaded.
    Quantifying this - in a specific instance - loading for my 40X .308 - it loves 168SMK's on the lands - to be specific - just touching. The difference? .020 off, opens the group by 30%. The LR AR? from .005 in to say .010 off - would take that group and double its size at 300yds duing one of my velocity test sessions. On target at 1K - it would have been ugly.

    - Uniforming primer pockets - easy stuff, one time and you're done. Definitely worth it. It also contributes to CONSISTENCY of the case.

    - Deburring flash holes - same as above.

    - Bumping shoulders VS resizing to factory specs - in a gas gun - full length resize. If you bump a shoulder in a gas gun reloading - you will be pounding out a stuck case - IF you can even get the bolt to close. Brass is extracted and ejected hot and still under pressure, read "plastic" state - ESPECIALLY in an AR10 type platform. Put a mike on fired brass about 1/3 up from the bottom and compare to new unfired brass - the diameters grow considerably. You will need to full length resize for the GAP10. Bolt guns are happy when you feed them fire formed brass - you've basically custom sized the brass to your chamber. For that, you'll only need to neck size - and maybe every 5 or 6 loadings, bump the shoulder to maintain the right cartridge headspace.

    Others have opined about bushing neck dies - great investment - and another tool to fine tune the ammo re: neck tension. It also offers you flexibility - case in point, I can pop out a .332 bushing for that 40X (tight neck/turned brass) and drop a .339 bushing in to load LC brass for my M14. Super simple and precise.

    There is a lot of good advice - Accurate Shooter (6BR.com) is excellent.

    Final thought - (sorry for the long post)...one aspect that befuddles and confuses reloaders, not to mention wasting bullets, powder, barrel life etc is the actual development process. All too often I see reloaders who have loaded for years, repeat the some old wasteful routine. They'll load 3 - 10 rounds of the same charge and have 10 different charges; 30 -100 rds of ammo and proceed to shoot each charge for group. They end up with a stack of targets with a whole bunch of different groups - they pick the smallest one and declare victory. Wrong wrong wrong.
    I would strongly suggest a ladder method or incremental load method where you'd only need to shoot 1, maybe 3 rounds of each charge weight. Based on analysis of vertical stringing, you'll be able to ID the accuracy nodes in your various charges - in a 308 you'll probably see 3 or 4 charges separated by maybe .2/.3grs or a range of .6-.8grs that all shoot to the same elevation - they'll cluster. This is a sweat spot and if you start your fine tuning in the center of that sweat spot (charge weight wise), you'll get to a seriously accurate load far quicker with exponnentially greater confindence that you truly have an accurate load for that rifle. The fine tuning will consist of bumping the charge weight up/down in smaller increments on each side of the sweet spot and playing with seating depth. Loading to the center of that sweet spot will also build in a buffer for atmospheric issues - i.e. temperature changes. That guy who picked that really cool looking group using that outdated inefficient method unknowingly picked one that was right on the hiry edge of a pressure issue. That great group shout in 50deg weather starts pooping primers and leaking gas in his face in the spring time in 70deg weather. The center charge of the sweet spot will prevent that. How do you think that factory loaded match ammo manages to maintain accuracy in nearly every type of condition?

    Hope this helps - its only 1% of the the realm....

    What are your questions?
    Last edited by opsoff1; 12-11-13 at 15:15.
    opsoff

    "I'd rather go down the river with seven studs than with a hundred shitheads"- Colonel Charlie Beckwith

  4. #24
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    Not my post but thank you for replying. I have learned a lot even though I do not consider myself a precision reloader.

    When you feel like sharing more I will be all ears.

  5. #25
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    Excellent post. Thanks.

  6. #26
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    My $.02 as someone who hand loads .308WIN and .338LM for match grade ammo in my bolt-guns.

    Quote Originally Posted by SWThomas View Post
    - Turning case necks
    Don't waste your time/money, not at least at this stage. Something reserved for the bench rest guys looking for that .00001 increase in accuracy.

    Quote Originally Posted by SWThomas View Post
    - Using bench rest primers VS standard primers
    Don't waste your time/money, not at least at this stage. Something reserved for the bench rest guys looking for that .00001 increase in accuracy.

    Quote Originally Posted by SWThomas View Post
    - Using competition seating dies over standard dies
    There is only two advantages to the Competition dies in my eyes. First is they typically come with a micrometer seating head. This doesn't actually increase accuracy of the dies at all, it simply makes changing settings easier and faster. Once the seating depth of the die is set, there is no difference in a die with or without the micrometer. The second advantage is most Competition dies include bushings for the neck portion of the resizing action. The advantage here is your can custom tune the neck sizing to just below your chamber size. That way you are not "over working" the brass.

    My honest opinion, you can get same accuracy out of a good standard set of dies as you can from any Competition set. All of my dies are standard RCBS or standard Redding.

    Quote Originally Posted by SWThomas View Post
    - Crimping and not crimping
    Always crimp. Crimping increases accuracy as the case mouth pressure on the projectile is the same from round to round. Over crimping can cause issues, so understand the correct use of crimping.

    Quote Originally Posted by SWThomas View Post
    - Loading to be just off the lands or kissing the lands
    I've honestly yet to play with this. I bought the Hornady OAL gauge that allows you to measure and set "bullet jump" from the lands, but yet to try it out. I've always heard kissing or touching the lands can be a big issue as it will drastically increase chamber pressure.

    Quote Originally Posted by SWThomas View Post
    - Uniforming primer pockets
    I have the RCBS Case Prep Station and do this as one of the steps on all my match grade brass. Does it make a huge difference, no idea but it's easy enough step in the case prep process so I do it.

    Quote Originally Posted by SWThomas View Post
    - Deburring flash holes
    Same as above, but don't think it offers much.

    Quote Originally Posted by SWThomas View Post
    - Bumping shoulders VS resizing to factory specs
    Bolt-gun vs. semi-auto, two completely different stories on this topic. With semi-auto you want to full-length resize every single time to guarantee reliable round cycling. However with bolt-guns this isn't the case, and you instead want to have the upmost in accuracy while also saving your valuable match brass. For this reason on bolt-guns it's recommended to full-length case size the first time, then fire the round and from that point on only neck size until the round is difficult to drop the bolt. At that point, do a full-length resize, wash, rinse, repeat.
    Last edited by Anthony.L; 12-11-13 at 17:41.

  7. #27
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    opsoff1,

    Awesome, awesome, awesome post! That is a lot to take in, and I definitely will. I cut/pasted that to a word doc for reference later. I'm definitely going to take your advice on finding the sweet spot and then playing with OALs. Thanks again for taking the time to post all that.
    America is not at war... The U.S. Military is at war... America is at the mall.
    I love cigars!

  8. #28
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    Just to clarify.... When I said bumping the shoulders, what I meant was... full length resizing, but adjusting the die to only bump the shoulder back a certain amount. I'm using a Dillon rifle die to resize and it is a FL sizing die. I currently have it adjusted to bump the shoulder back .002 on fire-formed cases. I measure this with a bump gauge. I fired off 50 rounds sized this way a week ago and they all fed/chambered/extracted/ejected perfectly.
    America is not at war... The U.S. Military is at war... America is at the mall.
    I love cigars!

  9. #29
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    Primer pocket uniforming, flash hole uniforming, and neck turning unless your running a tight necked reamer don't bother.

    The more important items is consistant fat necked brass LC or Federal from the same batch/lot (mine runs .339 loaded), uniform primer seating, uniform neck tension and case/loaded round contricity. Since your running a gasser, if you decide to use a taper crimp die uniform case length will go towards a more uniform crimp.

    I personally think case contricity when bumping the shoulder back .002 and neck sizing is important.

    ETA: The use of a hand primer will give more feel and uniform primer seating than using press accessory priming units.
    Last edited by Ttwwaack; 12-11-13 at 22:52.

  10. #30
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    Competition dies are great, but the redding dies should not be used for compressed loads. Rcbs has there gold medal match dies that have a micrometer along with a window that you drop the bullet into and it holds the bullet until you pull the handle to seat the bullet. It acts like a bullet feeder one bullet at a time.

    If anyone is more intersted in it someone started a thread about them a while back with detailed information.

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