This article was just published in the Winter edition of the Ontario Rifle Association Newsletter.
Making Ammunition
By Don McGinnis
Anyone who happened to notice my scores over the last few years also noticed they were nothing to brag about. A couple of years ago I decided to try and eliminate one of the possible problems by trying to make target ammunition that could be counted on to be consistent. I knew that I would have to purchase a few small tools to help me do this but I would continue to use my regular loading equipment even though it was quite old. Reading the wind, holding the rifle and squeezing the trigger would still be all-important, but if I was shooting dependable ammunition and still getting low scores it would definitely be a shooter problem, not an ammunition problem.
Although serious shooters likely employ different ammunition loading procedures, this is the one I currently use.
New Cartridge Cases
When I have new brass cartridge cases in which the primer holes were punched rather than drilled, I clean the primer flash holes from the interior of the cases with a de-burring tool. The tool is designed to uniform the flash hole and cut off the burr left inside the base of the case when the manufacturer punched the hole. Sometimes you have to do a little prying to get the burr in a position where it can be removed. Another thing the de-burring tool does is bevel the inside of the flash hole. I cannot prove this but, I believe the bevel lets the flash spread wider when the firing pin hits the primer. I also use a primer pocket reamer (some call it a uniformer) to plane the bottom of the pocket to ensure that primers fit flat.
I also check the neck wall thickness of new cases with a Sinclair Neck Wall Gauge®. If it shows more than .001 inch of variance, I turn the outside of the necks. I don’t have chambers with tight necks so I only turn off enough brass on the thick sides to make the neck wall uniform. I keep neck-turned brass separate from brass cases that have not been turned. I do this because later in the process when necks are expanded to accept the bullet, the neck turned cases need less pressure to seat the bullet than the cases that were not neck turned. This is likely because there is less material in the neck to compress when the cases are resized. After de-burring and neck turning, I chamfer the inside and outside of the case necks.
Fired Cases
On cases that have been fired, I place the empty cartridge cases in a tumbler with corn cob cleaning media and let the tumbler turn for a couple of hours. In my tumbler, if the cases are around the size of .308’s, I put in about 80; if they are magnum sized cases, I put in 50 to 60. Although the manufacturer of the tumbler says you can put in a lot more, I don’t bother as I have found that too many cases in the tumbler means too many scratches on the outside of the cases and while these are small, they can be seen. To make sure the neck area comes really clean, I rub the outside of the neck and shoulder area with steel wool before placing the cases in the tumbler. When I want nice bright brass cases, I add Rooster Bright® or Turbo Brite® case polish to the media before starting. Clumped media can stick inside the case near the base and can still be there when the powder is added. If this happens, the cartridge can misfire because the flame from the primer cannot reach the powder. To prevent any clumping of the case polish with the media, I let the polish tumble with the corn cob for 10 to 15 minutes before adding the cases. Although I clean my cases by tumbling, many target shooters use chemical cleaning or some other material like Krazy Kloth® or Nevr-Dull®.
I wipe the outside of the cases with paper towelling after they have been removed from the tumbler. This ensures any media dust that may be on the cases will not accumulate on the inside of the sizing die and mark the outside of the cases themselves when they are resized. This is a good time to really have a close look at the cases and get rid of any that show a defect.
Removing Spent Primers
Although spent primers can be removed when the cases are resized, I remove them with a universal de-capping die. I like to keep each process separate; I feel it gives better control to the whole operation. After removing the primer, I tap the case mouth on a cloth laid on the loading bench to remove any corn cob media that might happen to be still left in the case.
I then use the primer pocket reamer to clean the residue in the primer pocket. The reamer not only removes residue, it continues to plane the bottom of the pocket to help ensure that primers fit flat. The reamer has a shoulder that prevents it from removing too much brass from the bottom of the primer pocket. After using the reamer, I tap both ends of the case onto a cloth on the loading bench to remove the primer residue and any tiny brass shavings.
Next I chamfer the inside and outside of the case mouth and then clean the inside of the neck with a neck brush. After every cleaning operation, I always tap the open case mouth on the cloth to again remove any residue and brass shavings.
Resizing Cases
Along with removing the de-capping rod from of my resizing die, I also removed the spring clip that retains the shell holder in the upper end of the loading press ram. This permits the shell holder to float in the press. A floating shell holder seems to allow the cartridge cases to better align themselves with the resizing and seating die when operating the press. Of course you have to ensure the shell holder is centred before every operation of the press handle to prevent the side of the case mouth from striking the bottom of the die.
When installing the resizing die in the press, I screw the die down until the shell holder just slightly bumps the bottom of the die when the press ram is raised to its full travel. With full length sizing dies, the case is resized and the slight bump ensures that the case shoulder is pushed back about .001 to .002 of an inch. If you operate the press handle with a gentle touch, you can feel the die resizing the case body, neck and shoulder. To prevent the case from sticking in the die, I use a slight amount of water-soluble case lubricant on the outside of the case and just rub it on with my thumb and finger. I use very little lubricant as too much leaves dents on the shoulder.
After all the cases have been resized, I remove the die from the press and insert a neck expander die for the bullet diameter I intend to load. The expander die expands all the case necks the same amount and provides the same neck “tension” on the bullet when the cartridge is fired. Case tension on the bullet is another reason to keep neck turned cases separated from cases with unturned necks. Whenever installing dies in a press, I make sure they are really snug. The only movement I want happening to the case is from the floating shell holder. When expanding necks I use a small cotton swab to place a very small amount of Imperial Sizing Die Wax® or water-soluble case lubricant inside the neck before the neck is expanded.
When all the case necks have been expanded, I put them in a plastic pail with general purpose liquid cleaner and hot water. After letting the cases soak for about 15 minutes I gently swish them around with a paint stir stick. I then pour out the water and pick up 8 or 10 cases at a time and hold them upside down in my hand to let them quickly drain. I place the cases on a towel and dry the outsides by turning the towel over and rolling them inside. I then place the cases with the open neck downwards in a loading block. After about 15 minutes I move them to a second loading block as the bottom of the holes in the first one are wet from water dripping out of the cases. I now take a cotton swab and dry the primer pockets and then leave the cases to completely dry in the loading block overnight.
To try to prevent any chambering problems at the shooting range, I now cycle every empty case through the action. I always add a little bolt grease to the lugs after chambering 15 or 20 cases to prevent metal galling of the bolt lugs. After trying each case, I clean the chamber and bolt lug recesses to remove any excess grease and any small slivers of brass that may have been shaved from the cases during chambering.
Weighing Cases
New and fired cases are now weighed. I have an Acculab® digital scale that seems to be fairly accurate providing it is not subjected to interference from air conditioner or furnace air movement. If there are a variety of weights (and there always is), I line them up in the loading blocks starting from lightest to heaviest. I even make a small diagram to ensure I keep the same lineup throughout the remainder of the loading procedure.
After weighing, I install the primers using a hand-operated primer tool. The hand tool allows you to feel if the primers are sitting on the bottom of the primer pocket. Although there are likely many good primers on the market I use Federal Gold Medal Match® or CCI Benchrest® large rifle primers. After priming I always replace the cases in the loading block according to my diagram.
Bullets
Before seating bullets, I check each one with a magnifying glass looking especially for problems at the hollow-point tip and the tips with plastic inserts. It is possible for the hollow point to be damaged or the plastic insert to appear off-centre. Any bullets that look questionable may eventually get used but they don’t get shot in competition. I also check lengths based on ogive profile by inserting each bullet into a comparator and measuring the length with a vernier caliper. The bullets are then placed in separate boxes marked with their ogive length. I don’t use the real short or real long ones in competition. Separating bullets by ogive length appears to provide better accuracy when measuring the length of loaded rounds using the ogive comparator. It also seems to be more consistent when using a caliper to measure the overall length (OAL) of a loaded cartridge.
Once the ogive length has been established, I weigh each bullet and separate them based on the bullet weight. My scale has been set to read in increments of two-one hundreds (2/100) of a grain. So for example, if I am weighing 180 grain bullets of a particular ogive length, one pile would be 180 grains to 180.08 grains. The next group would be 180.10 grains to 180.18 grains; the next would be 180.20 to 180.28 grains and so on. Again they are placed in marked boxes after weighing. After weighing a couple of thousand bullets, I have only found three slightly below the advertised weight.
Before I insert bullets into the cases I re-weigh the bullets from the box I am going to use and line them up on my bench by individual weight, going from the lightest to the heaviest.
Setting the Seating Die
I then use my Forster Benchrest Seater® which I turn into the press far enough to close the sliding chamber tightly onto the shell holder when the ram is at its full travel. The die is locked there. I turn the adjustable head down until its snug on the die and make all bullet seating length adjustments with the seating stem. Every thing should be tight; the only movement allowed is the floating shell holder. As the bullets are loaded, I again go from the lightest to heaviest starting at the lightest case weights. The reason I do this is to try and prevent any surprises while shooting. If I have read the wind properly and a bullet impacts well away from the group, I believe it is a shooter problem not an ammunition problem and therefore will not compensate for the next shot. However, if the group starts to gradually move direction, I make the necessary sight adjustment to bring it back to centre.
Adding Powder
After zeroing my balance-beam powder scale, I set it to the powder capacity I want. Once I set the powder measure to the approximate weight, I depense and weigh a few charges. I try to depense an amount slightly less than the weight needed and then trickle the remaining granules into the scale pan using my thumb and finger. Although trickling in the remaining granules is slow work, by being careful you can get each charge as accurate as the scale will allow. As a double check, I place each powder charge on the scale pan of the digital scale. Occasionally the powder charge needs some fine tuning by adding or removing a granule.
Measuring for Cartridge Overall Length
Because the leade length (that is the length from the case mouth to the rifled barrel lands) could be different across barrel makers, my dilemma has always been to establish how far to seat the bullet into the case. I have heard that some bench rest shooters have their bullets tight to the barrel lands but I was reluctant to do this. I was afraid that if I had to remove an unfired cartridge from the chamber, the bullet could be stuck on the lands and be pulled out of the case resulting in powder falling into the trigger mechanism. As well, I understand that sometimes chamber pressure can rise quite high when a cartridge is fired with the bullet tight onto the lands. I decided to try to keep between a .005 inch and .010 inch land clearance.
Nevertheless, I still had to find out what the length was from the bolt face to the barrel lands so I would have a starting point to know how much to subtract to get clearance. I tried two different methods to achieve this. For the first method, I closed the bolt on the unloaded rifle and slid a long wooden dowel down the barrel from the muzzle end until it contacted the bolt and then carefully marked the location of the end of the barrel on the dowel with a knife. Then, with the bolt removed from the action, I held bullets with different ogive profiles onto the lands from the chamber end using a short dowel pushed against the base of the bullet. To make sure the bullet and the short dowel stayed in place I installed an elastic band between the bolt handle recess (the sight base can also be used) and the end of the dowel. I then slid the long dowel down the barrel until it touched the tip of the bullet and again marked the muzzle end location on the dowel. The measurement between the marks would be the maximum length of a loaded cartridge. I subtracted .005 of an inch from this measurement to get the overall length that I wanted.
Since it was difficult to accurately mark the wooden dowel when using different bullet ogive profiles I decided to try a second method and purchased a Stoney Point O.A.L. Gauge®. The directions that came with it were easy to use. While I got different measurements with the wooden dowel method, I also got small differences in overall length measurements with the gauge depending on which bullets I used. After trying a variety of ogive profiles I subtracted .005 inches from the shortest dimension measured on the gauge to use as my overall loaded length.
Seating Bullets
I started by setting the stem on the seating die to seat the bullets a little longer than I wanted. I then keep turning the stem down until I am satisfied with the measurement I get when the bullet is seated. When using bullets with the same ogive profile measurement, the overall length can be kept quite close. I use to measure every fifth loaded cartridge with the ogive comparator as a check to see if the overall length is still being held. Now, to ensure that the overall length is consistent, I measure every loaded round. When first starting this loading procedure I found that the tips of the bullets were contacting the bottom of the seating stem and I had to order a new stem that only contacted the bullet ogive.
Run-out
Run-out refers to the concentricity of the bullet, the case and the bore of the barrel – essentially everything should be aligned. After all the rounds are loaded, I check the bullet run-out with a Sinclair Concentricity Gauge® to see how close the bullets are aligned with the case. Many of the loaded rounds have less than .001 inches of run-out, many have no run-out but some have as much as .005 inches. I haven’t been able to tell exactly if my loading technique needs some fine tuning or if the cases may not be totally concentric or if there are case dents that cannot be seen but cause the case to not turn true. This problem seems to be more prevalent on unfired cases. It would appear that any unseen dents on the cases disappear after the cases have been fired once. On rounds with more than .001 inch of run-out, I mark a dot on the case neck with a felt pen opposite the highest number on the gauge. I then insert the bullets with extra run-out into a hole I have bored in a hardwood board and lever it straight by pulling the case toward the dotted mark with my hand. The hole in the board is just slightly larger than the diameter of the bullet as I didn’t want to place any pressure on the tip of the bullet. I then check run-out again. Sometimes it only takes seconds to straighten a round, sometimes much longer. Occasionally you cannot get a loaded round straight as it appears there is more than one high side. You then have to decide if that loaded round will be used in competition.
Boxing Loaded Rounds
After each operation the cases are placed back in the loading block in the same location as when starting the loading procedure. Once loading is completed the cartridges are placed, bullet tip upwards, in 50 or 100 round plastic ammunition boxes to take to the range. The boxes are filled by placing the cartridges in the same configuration as the original diagram. A diagram of the placement showing the starting point and the order to follow as the cartridges are used is attached to the inside of the box lid. If cases of more than one weight are placed in the box, the diagram shows the case weights in the various sections. A piece of ½ inch foam is placed over the tips to prevent cartridge movement or bullet damage if the box upsets. A decal placed on the outside of the lid shows the normal information that handloaders would utilize such as date loaded, powder maker and amount used, bullet weight, etc.
Although the previous outline is the procedure I use to load ammunition, some may say it has too many steps or that it takes too long. They could be right. I just know that although my scores are still not winning matches, they have definitely gone up and I think the ammo has helped. I have shot quite a few bullets over my chronograph and found the shots to be near average speed; the farthest from average was 10 feet per second. They also show good velocity consistency as calculations indicate a standard deviation (SD) of 6; most shooters are happy with an SD of 10 or 12. Taking the time to load ammunition in this manner has led me to believe that I can now tell the difference between a shooter problem and an ammunition problem.
Making Ammunition
By Don McGinnis
Anyone who happened to notice my scores over the last few years also noticed they were nothing to brag about. A couple of years ago I decided to try and eliminate one of the possible problems by trying to make target ammunition that could be counted on to be consistent. I knew that I would have to purchase a few small tools to help me do this but I would continue to use my regular loading equipment even though it was quite old. Reading the wind, holding the rifle and squeezing the trigger would still be all-important, but if I was shooting dependable ammunition and still getting low scores it would definitely be a shooter problem, not an ammunition problem.
Although serious shooters likely employ different ammunition loading procedures, this is the one I currently use.
New Cartridge Cases
When I have new brass cartridge cases in which the primer holes were punched rather than drilled, I clean the primer flash holes from the interior of the cases with a de-burring tool. The tool is designed to uniform the flash hole and cut off the burr left inside the base of the case when the manufacturer punched the hole. Sometimes you have to do a little prying to get the burr in a position where it can be removed. Another thing the de-burring tool does is bevel the inside of the flash hole. I cannot prove this but, I believe the bevel lets the flash spread wider when the firing pin hits the primer. I also use a primer pocket reamer (some call it a uniformer) to plane the bottom of the pocket to ensure that primers fit flat.
I also check the neck wall thickness of new cases with a Sinclair Neck Wall Gauge®. If it shows more than .001 inch of variance, I turn the outside of the necks. I don’t have chambers with tight necks so I only turn off enough brass on the thick sides to make the neck wall uniform. I keep neck-turned brass separate from brass cases that have not been turned. I do this because later in the process when necks are expanded to accept the bullet, the neck turned cases need less pressure to seat the bullet than the cases that were not neck turned. This is likely because there is less material in the neck to compress when the cases are resized. After de-burring and neck turning, I chamfer the inside and outside of the case necks.
Fired Cases
On cases that have been fired, I place the empty cartridge cases in a tumbler with corn cob cleaning media and let the tumbler turn for a couple of hours. In my tumbler, if the cases are around the size of .308’s, I put in about 80; if they are magnum sized cases, I put in 50 to 60. Although the manufacturer of the tumbler says you can put in a lot more, I don’t bother as I have found that too many cases in the tumbler means too many scratches on the outside of the cases and while these are small, they can be seen. To make sure the neck area comes really clean, I rub the outside of the neck and shoulder area with steel wool before placing the cases in the tumbler. When I want nice bright brass cases, I add Rooster Bright® or Turbo Brite® case polish to the media before starting. Clumped media can stick inside the case near the base and can still be there when the powder is added. If this happens, the cartridge can misfire because the flame from the primer cannot reach the powder. To prevent any clumping of the case polish with the media, I let the polish tumble with the corn cob for 10 to 15 minutes before adding the cases. Although I clean my cases by tumbling, many target shooters use chemical cleaning or some other material like Krazy Kloth® or Nevr-Dull®.
I wipe the outside of the cases with paper towelling after they have been removed from the tumbler. This ensures any media dust that may be on the cases will not accumulate on the inside of the sizing die and mark the outside of the cases themselves when they are resized. This is a good time to really have a close look at the cases and get rid of any that show a defect.
Removing Spent Primers
Although spent primers can be removed when the cases are resized, I remove them with a universal de-capping die. I like to keep each process separate; I feel it gives better control to the whole operation. After removing the primer, I tap the case mouth on a cloth laid on the loading bench to remove any corn cob media that might happen to be still left in the case.
I then use the primer pocket reamer to clean the residue in the primer pocket. The reamer not only removes residue, it continues to plane the bottom of the pocket to help ensure that primers fit flat. The reamer has a shoulder that prevents it from removing too much brass from the bottom of the primer pocket. After using the reamer, I tap both ends of the case onto a cloth on the loading bench to remove the primer residue and any tiny brass shavings.
Next I chamfer the inside and outside of the case mouth and then clean the inside of the neck with a neck brush. After every cleaning operation, I always tap the open case mouth on the cloth to again remove any residue and brass shavings.
Resizing Cases
Along with removing the de-capping rod from of my resizing die, I also removed the spring clip that retains the shell holder in the upper end of the loading press ram. This permits the shell holder to float in the press. A floating shell holder seems to allow the cartridge cases to better align themselves with the resizing and seating die when operating the press. Of course you have to ensure the shell holder is centred before every operation of the press handle to prevent the side of the case mouth from striking the bottom of the die.
When installing the resizing die in the press, I screw the die down until the shell holder just slightly bumps the bottom of the die when the press ram is raised to its full travel. With full length sizing dies, the case is resized and the slight bump ensures that the case shoulder is pushed back about .001 to .002 of an inch. If you operate the press handle with a gentle touch, you can feel the die resizing the case body, neck and shoulder. To prevent the case from sticking in the die, I use a slight amount of water-soluble case lubricant on the outside of the case and just rub it on with my thumb and finger. I use very little lubricant as too much leaves dents on the shoulder.
After all the cases have been resized, I remove the die from the press and insert a neck expander die for the bullet diameter I intend to load. The expander die expands all the case necks the same amount and provides the same neck “tension” on the bullet when the cartridge is fired. Case tension on the bullet is another reason to keep neck turned cases separated from cases with unturned necks. Whenever installing dies in a press, I make sure they are really snug. The only movement I want happening to the case is from the floating shell holder. When expanding necks I use a small cotton swab to place a very small amount of Imperial Sizing Die Wax® or water-soluble case lubricant inside the neck before the neck is expanded.
When all the case necks have been expanded, I put them in a plastic pail with general purpose liquid cleaner and hot water. After letting the cases soak for about 15 minutes I gently swish them around with a paint stir stick. I then pour out the water and pick up 8 or 10 cases at a time and hold them upside down in my hand to let them quickly drain. I place the cases on a towel and dry the outsides by turning the towel over and rolling them inside. I then place the cases with the open neck downwards in a loading block. After about 15 minutes I move them to a second loading block as the bottom of the holes in the first one are wet from water dripping out of the cases. I now take a cotton swab and dry the primer pockets and then leave the cases to completely dry in the loading block overnight.
To try to prevent any chambering problems at the shooting range, I now cycle every empty case through the action. I always add a little bolt grease to the lugs after chambering 15 or 20 cases to prevent metal galling of the bolt lugs. After trying each case, I clean the chamber and bolt lug recesses to remove any excess grease and any small slivers of brass that may have been shaved from the cases during chambering.
Weighing Cases
New and fired cases are now weighed. I have an Acculab® digital scale that seems to be fairly accurate providing it is not subjected to interference from air conditioner or furnace air movement. If there are a variety of weights (and there always is), I line them up in the loading blocks starting from lightest to heaviest. I even make a small diagram to ensure I keep the same lineup throughout the remainder of the loading procedure.
After weighing, I install the primers using a hand-operated primer tool. The hand tool allows you to feel if the primers are sitting on the bottom of the primer pocket. Although there are likely many good primers on the market I use Federal Gold Medal Match® or CCI Benchrest® large rifle primers. After priming I always replace the cases in the loading block according to my diagram.
Bullets
Before seating bullets, I check each one with a magnifying glass looking especially for problems at the hollow-point tip and the tips with plastic inserts. It is possible for the hollow point to be damaged or the plastic insert to appear off-centre. Any bullets that look questionable may eventually get used but they don’t get shot in competition. I also check lengths based on ogive profile by inserting each bullet into a comparator and measuring the length with a vernier caliper. The bullets are then placed in separate boxes marked with their ogive length. I don’t use the real short or real long ones in competition. Separating bullets by ogive length appears to provide better accuracy when measuring the length of loaded rounds using the ogive comparator. It also seems to be more consistent when using a caliper to measure the overall length (OAL) of a loaded cartridge.
Once the ogive length has been established, I weigh each bullet and separate them based on the bullet weight. My scale has been set to read in increments of two-one hundreds (2/100) of a grain. So for example, if I am weighing 180 grain bullets of a particular ogive length, one pile would be 180 grains to 180.08 grains. The next group would be 180.10 grains to 180.18 grains; the next would be 180.20 to 180.28 grains and so on. Again they are placed in marked boxes after weighing. After weighing a couple of thousand bullets, I have only found three slightly below the advertised weight.
Before I insert bullets into the cases I re-weigh the bullets from the box I am going to use and line them up on my bench by individual weight, going from the lightest to the heaviest.
Setting the Seating Die
I then use my Forster Benchrest Seater® which I turn into the press far enough to close the sliding chamber tightly onto the shell holder when the ram is at its full travel. The die is locked there. I turn the adjustable head down until its snug on the die and make all bullet seating length adjustments with the seating stem. Every thing should be tight; the only movement allowed is the floating shell holder. As the bullets are loaded, I again go from the lightest to heaviest starting at the lightest case weights. The reason I do this is to try and prevent any surprises while shooting. If I have read the wind properly and a bullet impacts well away from the group, I believe it is a shooter problem not an ammunition problem and therefore will not compensate for the next shot. However, if the group starts to gradually move direction, I make the necessary sight adjustment to bring it back to centre.
Adding Powder
After zeroing my balance-beam powder scale, I set it to the powder capacity I want. Once I set the powder measure to the approximate weight, I depense and weigh a few charges. I try to depense an amount slightly less than the weight needed and then trickle the remaining granules into the scale pan using my thumb and finger. Although trickling in the remaining granules is slow work, by being careful you can get each charge as accurate as the scale will allow. As a double check, I place each powder charge on the scale pan of the digital scale. Occasionally the powder charge needs some fine tuning by adding or removing a granule.
Measuring for Cartridge Overall Length
Because the leade length (that is the length from the case mouth to the rifled barrel lands) could be different across barrel makers, my dilemma has always been to establish how far to seat the bullet into the case. I have heard that some bench rest shooters have their bullets tight to the barrel lands but I was reluctant to do this. I was afraid that if I had to remove an unfired cartridge from the chamber, the bullet could be stuck on the lands and be pulled out of the case resulting in powder falling into the trigger mechanism. As well, I understand that sometimes chamber pressure can rise quite high when a cartridge is fired with the bullet tight onto the lands. I decided to try to keep between a .005 inch and .010 inch land clearance.
Nevertheless, I still had to find out what the length was from the bolt face to the barrel lands so I would have a starting point to know how much to subtract to get clearance. I tried two different methods to achieve this. For the first method, I closed the bolt on the unloaded rifle and slid a long wooden dowel down the barrel from the muzzle end until it contacted the bolt and then carefully marked the location of the end of the barrel on the dowel with a knife. Then, with the bolt removed from the action, I held bullets with different ogive profiles onto the lands from the chamber end using a short dowel pushed against the base of the bullet. To make sure the bullet and the short dowel stayed in place I installed an elastic band between the bolt handle recess (the sight base can also be used) and the end of the dowel. I then slid the long dowel down the barrel until it touched the tip of the bullet and again marked the muzzle end location on the dowel. The measurement between the marks would be the maximum length of a loaded cartridge. I subtracted .005 of an inch from this measurement to get the overall length that I wanted.
Since it was difficult to accurately mark the wooden dowel when using different bullet ogive profiles I decided to try a second method and purchased a Stoney Point O.A.L. Gauge®. The directions that came with it were easy to use. While I got different measurements with the wooden dowel method, I also got small differences in overall length measurements with the gauge depending on which bullets I used. After trying a variety of ogive profiles I subtracted .005 inches from the shortest dimension measured on the gauge to use as my overall loaded length.
Seating Bullets
I started by setting the stem on the seating die to seat the bullets a little longer than I wanted. I then keep turning the stem down until I am satisfied with the measurement I get when the bullet is seated. When using bullets with the same ogive profile measurement, the overall length can be kept quite close. I use to measure every fifth loaded cartridge with the ogive comparator as a check to see if the overall length is still being held. Now, to ensure that the overall length is consistent, I measure every loaded round. When first starting this loading procedure I found that the tips of the bullets were contacting the bottom of the seating stem and I had to order a new stem that only contacted the bullet ogive.
Run-out
Run-out refers to the concentricity of the bullet, the case and the bore of the barrel – essentially everything should be aligned. After all the rounds are loaded, I check the bullet run-out with a Sinclair Concentricity Gauge® to see how close the bullets are aligned with the case. Many of the loaded rounds have less than .001 inches of run-out, many have no run-out but some have as much as .005 inches. I haven’t been able to tell exactly if my loading technique needs some fine tuning or if the cases may not be totally concentric or if there are case dents that cannot be seen but cause the case to not turn true. This problem seems to be more prevalent on unfired cases. It would appear that any unseen dents on the cases disappear after the cases have been fired once. On rounds with more than .001 inch of run-out, I mark a dot on the case neck with a felt pen opposite the highest number on the gauge. I then insert the bullets with extra run-out into a hole I have bored in a hardwood board and lever it straight by pulling the case toward the dotted mark with my hand. The hole in the board is just slightly larger than the diameter of the bullet as I didn’t want to place any pressure on the tip of the bullet. I then check run-out again. Sometimes it only takes seconds to straighten a round, sometimes much longer. Occasionally you cannot get a loaded round straight as it appears there is more than one high side. You then have to decide if that loaded round will be used in competition.
Boxing Loaded Rounds
After each operation the cases are placed back in the loading block in the same location as when starting the loading procedure. Once loading is completed the cartridges are placed, bullet tip upwards, in 50 or 100 round plastic ammunition boxes to take to the range. The boxes are filled by placing the cartridges in the same configuration as the original diagram. A diagram of the placement showing the starting point and the order to follow as the cartridges are used is attached to the inside of the box lid. If cases of more than one weight are placed in the box, the diagram shows the case weights in the various sections. A piece of ½ inch foam is placed over the tips to prevent cartridge movement or bullet damage if the box upsets. A decal placed on the outside of the lid shows the normal information that handloaders would utilize such as date loaded, powder maker and amount used, bullet weight, etc.
Although the previous outline is the procedure I use to load ammunition, some may say it has too many steps or that it takes too long. They could be right. I just know that although my scores are still not winning matches, they have definitely gone up and I think the ammo has helped. I have shot quite a few bullets over my chronograph and found the shots to be near average speed; the farthest from average was 10 feet per second. They also show good velocity consistency as calculations indicate a standard deviation (SD) of 6; most shooters are happy with an SD of 10 or 12. Taking the time to load ammunition in this manner has led me to believe that I can now tell the difference between a shooter problem and an ammunition problem.
Great info
