Different OAL When reloading

grunt19

grunt19

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Ok just started relaoding and I am reloading for my 338 Edge now last night I gave it a shoot once I had the OAL set to 3.683 I seated a couple more and cheaked them and I was getting different OALs .379 , .386 and just about every one in between so any ideas whats on the go.:confused:
 
Two things come to mind right off.

1. The cases are not trimmed to the exact same length.
2. There is something (usually wax) built up on the bottom of your bullet seating die.

Can't really think of any other reasons other than mechanical problems with your press or dies of the top of my head.
 
What seater dies are you using.

A bullet never gets seated from the very tip, its from a point between the tip and the ogive.

If you meassure your bullets base to tip you will soon find out the OAL varries and may varry as much as you meassured

If you meassure your COL from the Bullet ogive you will see that they are close to all the same OAL. Some high end seaters seat bullets even at a lower point closer to the ogive like Redding foster and Wilson, making them very close to perfect.
 
I had the same problem with a Forster competition die in 338 Lapua. The die was touching the tip of the Lapua Scenars I was loading and because the extrusion leaves the bullet tips with a slight variance I was getting variables in the seating depth. Sent the die and a sample of two bullets back to the factory and the reamed the die to fit. No more problem.
 
JasonYuke said:
A bullet never gets seated from the very tip, its from a point between the tip and the ogive.
Click to expand...

What counts is having that 'point' and thus the ogive at a consistent depth. The SSTs I'm loading have a plastic tip that varies +_ .003 but is irrelavent IMHO. I adjust seating depth based on an average of the first five rds and then stop fiddling with it so I don't create a consistency problem. Just my 2cents.
 
When seating your bullet, try running the round up into the seating die only part way, partially seating the bullet. Then give the round a half turn and run it all the way up.
 
hunter64 said:
Two things come to mind right off.

1. The cases are not trimmed to the exact same length.
2. There is something (usually wax) built up on the bottom of your bullet seating die.

Can't really think of any other reasons other than mechanical problems with your press or dies of the top of my head.
Click to expand...

Case length has nothing to do with your over all length when it comes to seating your bullets.
 
Case length definitely has something to do with over all case length if you are seating your bullets to the crimp groove.

If you are ignoring the crimp groove and seating them to the same length then you are correct.

I took the question as he was seating to the crimp groove and his overall length was changing.

Grunt19 have you figured it out yet?
 
Measure your bullets and you will find your problem. Most JHP will vary in length and your seating stem will most likely need to be adjusted so that tip of bullet does not contact seating stem first.
 
How much variation is ok for hunting rounds?

I would ask is +- .002 going to have a noticeable affect if the goal is a 1" group at 100 yards.

Not in my experience with 2 loads for my 30 06.

But I am new to reloading for rifle and would like to find what others have to say.
 
ruger22 said:
How much variation is ok for hunting rounds?

I would ask is +- .002 going to have a noticeable affect if the goal is a 1" group at 100 yards.

Not in my experience with 2 loads for my 30 06.

But I am new to reloading for rifle and would like to find what others have to say.
Click to expand...

In my hunting rifles, I do not fool with this too much. Seating depths should not make a tremendous amount of difference, with that variation, if so its more your load development rather than seating OALs. aboyt 15 years I got hung up on seating depths, and drove myself nuts,,, I now develop all my hunting rounds at factory OAL or SAMMI specs. When I find a good load, it will shoot in an inch, I may fiiddle a bit, but not that much.
 
ruger22 said:
How much variation is ok for hunting rounds?

I would ask is +- .002 going to have a noticeable affect if the goal is a 1" group at 100 yards.

Not in my experience with 2 loads for my 30 06.

But I am new to reloading for rifle and would like to find what others have to say.
Click to expand...

I use +/- 0.02 for all of the ammo I reload.

I find you can go completely crazy when reloading so you have to stop somewhere. I dont weigh and sort brass or measure neck thickness.

For me anyways, as long as I trim all the cases to the same length before I start, resize new brass through a die and then make sure all my powder charges are identical and the OAL is within .002, it works good for me.
 
Silverado said:
Case length can make your OAL vary if you are using your seating die to apply a crimp.
Click to expand...

Without making any adjustments on the seater one thing will stay the same, that is the distance from the your shell holder to some datum point on the stem of your seater that touches/pushes the bullet (hopefully not the bullet point) when the press ram is fully up. It does not matter how long the brass is, the seater will only push the bullet down so far. Where the difference on OAL comes in is when the datum on the bullet is different not the brass length.
Even match bullets vary in length so if you can get a hunting bullet to stay +-.002 in OAL you are doing very well.

Edit to add, as most of my loading for for single shot target rifles I have never seen the need to crimp.
 
With OAL, I have a question as well....

If I take a bag of brand new brass (remington for example since we all know their level of quality), run it through my RCBS FL die, primer them, charge them and then seat bullets (without adjusting the seating die length), why do they varry so much in OAL if the brass isnt trimmed first?

The huge variation in empty cartride length with a bag of new remingon brass is crazy.

For the sake of the arguement, the bullets were Nosler Accubonds (with plastic tips so there wont be any chance of deformed lead tips to alter the measured seated OAL).
 
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