Head space maybe?

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silver 55

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I had started a thread on precision rifles a while back but I have been thinking it would be more appropriate to talk about it here in the reloading section.

Last year I bought a rifle in 218 Bee. With any of my reloads the groups have been only so-so. About 3/4 inch or so.

Until I tried a load that had the bullets out touching the lands. All the other groups were roughly circular, the load that was touching the lands had about 1/4 inch of left-right but about an inch of verticle.

I have gotten quite a bit of chair time this winter, have done a bunch of reading.

One of the articles I read referenced a Herret cartridge and was talking about headspace problems and this got me thinking. Another article was talking about the K-Hornet and spoke of how well it shot compared to a Hornet because it had a shoulder to headspace on.

This got me to thinking there was a bit of a headspace problem with my rifle. I have Winchester brass and the rims measure around .055 or there abouts, give or take a few thou. Any of the reference books I have call for a rim of .065 thickness.

So, should I look around for some brass that would be more consistant in rim thickness or just use what I have got.

I could expand the case necks a wee bit, back my sizing die off a ways, size the brass until the bolt will only just close on the case in the chamber. This would be trying to headspace on the case shoulder.

Any ideas? Am I on the right track?
 
Easy enough to adjust your dies, and treat the cases as if they were rimless.
3/4" groups at what range?
 
Bee has a decently defined shoulder. Try sizing the necks of the cases just enough to hold the bullets.
3/4 @ 100 isn't bad.
 
My own Anschutz 1730HB in 22Hornet shot sub 1/2moa, and the K hornets that I know of don't shoot any better than that. In fact I can't recall any of them shooting that well.
 
tiriaq said:
Bee has a decently defined shoulder. Try sizing the necks of the cases just enough to hold the bullets.
3/4 @ 100 isn't bad.
Click to expand...

The rifle is a Cooper and I bought it from a friend of mine. He had managed to lose track of the test target since he had bought it, but said it was good.

When I can get a rifle to shoot a group with very little left-right dispersion to it and some verticle to it, I believe if I do some work on the load that I can get it to be a real shooter.
 
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