how do you determine when bullets are seated "to the lands"?

[Boomer]

Soft seat a flat based bullet backwards in the case, chamber the round, unload carefully and measure the length. This length represents the point where the bullet ogive meets the rifling. Take a bullet you plan to load and push it nose first into the muzzle of your barrel, then with a reasonable amount of pressure on the bullet twist it to scribe a line on the bullet. This scribed line on the bullet indicates the forward edge of the ogive. You can adjust the seating depth depending how tightly you want the bullet set into the rifling. Smoking a bullet seated in a dummy round with leave rifling marks in the soot to show how deeply the bullet seats into the rifling.

 

[senior]

This is the way I do it, too. I sometimes barely put the case in the sizing die to slightly tighten the neck to hold the bullet. Quick, accurate and safe. I don't know why you would buy an extra tool.

This is the way I do it too.
Only drawback is your measuring bullet point & sometimes even new bullet points will vary a little.
It is however more than accurate enough for hunting rifles IMHO

 

[ottawaguy]

take a spent case, ( a bullet should slide down the neck with room to spare) press edge of neck on hard surface to dent it. Make the dent as small as possible to apply a very, VERY light squeeze on the bullet, push bullet into neck so it sticks out as far as possible. gently chamber the round as though it was a single shot. close bolt open bolt and close it again. gently remove round and measure. this is your distance to the lands with this particular bullet.
price 0 dollars-0 cents
time less than 1 minute

Works everytime, I make sure to do it for every new bullet weight\style\brand.
I keep a record of it in my reloading book for future reference.

Only downside is what has been mentioned before. You can quickly run out of room in the mag in some rifles.

 

[LeftyM77]

Someone let me know if I am out to lunch here, but my method for getting my c.o.l. is by taking a fired, unsized brass,just barley seating a bullet in it (it should fit with a little bit of tension) putting it in my gun and slowly closing the bolt. it should be loose enough in the neck that the the bolt will seat the bullet into the case once it touches the lands. then eject and messure and back it off 5 thou or so, you can also do the trial and error method of loading a dud (no powder) start it long and keep trying it in your rifle and turning your seating die down a 1/4 turn at a time until it fits.

 

[Boomer]

Lefty, the disadvantage of your system is that if the bullets pushes hard into the lands, it could stick and be partially withdrawn from the case when you unchamber. If you use this method, repeat the process several times to ensure the length you get is repeatable.

 

[BCboy]

take a spent case, ( a bullet should slide down the neck with room to spare) press edge of neck on hard surface to dent it. Make the dent as small as possible to apply a very, VERY light squeeze on the bullet, push bullet into neck so it sticks out as far as possible. gently chamber the round as though it was a single shot. close bolt open bolt and close it again. gently remove round and measure. this is your distance to the lands with this particular bullet.
price 0 dollars-0 cents
time less than 1 minute

I have done it this way as well ,but I mark the bullet with felt pen befor I put it in the dented case as the dent will leave a clear line (scratch) on the bullet when pushed into the case ,that way if the bullet sticks in the lands a bit when ejected I can see where the bullet stoped on the lands. The same method is in the nosler 5&6 manual . I also bought the Hornady OAL gauge as well (cheap at cabelas) and it works great too.

I must say that the gauge is well worth $28 IMHO

 

[Derek__Erickson]

Just hold a bulletet in a bic lighter flame about an eigth of an inch into the flame for maybe a second, the result, black residue, you can play around with the bullet in an unsized case like that until you know where y ou hit the lands, then you can give yourself a jump to the lands if you like