Barnes seating questions

Y

Yak

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Hi guys,

New to reloading and trying to start with barnes ttsx 168 grainers in my 30 06.

Sized all my brass and seated an unprimed bullet very slightly before closing the same bullet in my rifle chamber several times. After measuring a million times i get an average of 3.405 to the lands. The bullet does not seem to be seated very far in with one and a half of the bands on the bullet base showing which has me concerned.

Is this normal for barnes bullets? Could I possibly have a really long chamber? (ruger mark II)

I tried the same thing with an untipped tsx bullet and came up with 3.368 to the lands.

Any info or help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Yak
 
I've run barnes bullets (including you're exact combo) in 3 guns and all liked to be seated fairly deep. In the case of the 168's and 30/06 barnes recommended .050'' off the lands seemed to work well.
 
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Start out seating the TSX/TTSX/LRX .050" off of the lands. All of my loads using these bullets have one or two grooves showing.
 
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As has been mentioned Barnes homogenous bullets like to jump a bit before engaging the lands. This makes a huge difference in accuracy with these bullets and I usually start mine .060 from the lands and play around a bit. I have never had any accuracy with these bullets in any caliber I tried them (and that's quite a few) seating them close to the lands.
I have several rifles that my bullets are seated way out some have less than 1/10" in the case neck and I have had no issues with them. Make sure you have good neck tension and keep your cases near max length and trimmed good and square and you shouldn't have any issues with shallow seated bullets.
 
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