Newb to reloading

oopswasthatyourdog?

oopswasthatyourdog?

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
EE Expired
Rating - 100%
4   0   0
Location
Sitting on my lilypad in southern Quebec
Been shooting for over 25 years and I'm finally getting into reloading. My question is how should I determine my OAL. If I want to reach out and touch the lands with the bullet how do I go about measuring my seating depth......do I start with the max OAL....help me please!
 
Simplest way is to make a dummy round and smoke your bullet on the dummy round, keep experimenting until you see marks on the smoked bullet. Cast bullets are much easier as you can see the marks on the bullet.
 
I could be going about this all wrong, but I take a fired casing from the rifle, start a bullet into the neck, put it into the chamber and close the bolt. As long as it is not sticky or extremely hard to close the bolt it should be on the lands or slightly into them. I run three of these dummy rounds to check that they are the same. Set your die to this and then try the smoke trick.
 
I use the bullet I intend to load. I slide a rod down the bore to the closed bolt face and lock a drill stop collar against the muzzle. Then remove the bolt and drop a bullet into the chamber against the rifling.(You can use a second rod to hold it into the rifling.)
I insert the rod until it touches the bullet tip and set a second collar on the muzzle. I then measure the distances between the faces which touched the muzzle with the depth setting on my calipers and this will give you the maximum length touching the lands.
I use the same bullet to seat in a case(no powder or primer) screwing the seater die down until I get the length I want. Using the same bullet avoids the errorr of having minor variations in individual bullets due to damaged tips. Once the seater is set it works for that design of bullet because the stem seats by touching the ogive.
Any cleaning rod or brass rod and two stop collars will do. The use your calipers to measure.
This OAL may well exceed your magazine length depending on your rifle so check it too.
 
Last edited:
Another tip that I'll add is don't forget to check a dummy round in your magazine. On some rifles, my Tikka T-3 for example, the max. COL is shorter than I'd like it due to the length of the magazine.
 
With my 270, I used a combination of the above. Ran a powderless round into the breech and measured it for initial reading. Then smoked with a candle, using the first measurement.
 
And I go a different route. I work up a load in my rifle to find the best results with the chosen components. Once I have that done, I then make up a dummy with the bullet sitting quite long. Load into the chamber and close the bolt. I now have a bullet of a length sitting right on the lands. I measure that, make up another round of bullets backing off in .002" increments from the lands until I am .010" off. Then I fire the bullets to see if/how groups change.
I pick the one I want, and make 100 for practice shooting.
I guess I could go back and work up another set splitting that .002" into 4 separate .0005" increments, but that's too much for hunting bullets.
 
LeroyvdH said:
Try colouring the bullet with a sharpie marker.The brass jacket shows up good with black
Click to expand...

+1

I take a peice of brass and squeeze the end a little bit. Colour the bullet black. Start to wedge the bullet in the brass and then chamber it.

The bullet will hit the lands and slide back into the brass. The "squeezed" brass will scratch the bullet and show where it is sitting. Carfully take it back out. Measure it. Back off your measurment by a hundreth or a couple thou. and bob your uncle. (You want a little bit of jump to the lands)

One thing to be aware of though. I shoot a rem 700 5Rmil.... my max OAL is something like 2.885 but I still load to 2.800 (SAAMI). WHY? Because the internal mag on the rifle will not take the 2.885, I can shoot it, but I have to load one at a time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom