Redding Bullet Seating Micrometer

[phorwath]

When I've experienced that scar on the surface of the bullet from the leading edge of the seating plug, I've chucked the seating plug in my cordless variable speed drill and spun the mouth of the seater plug against a fine grade of 3M sand paper in order to remove the sharp edge off the inner leading edge of the mouth of the seater plug. That has always stopped the ring scarring on the surface of my bullets.

The standard Redding seating plugs I've used haven't damaged the tips of the Berger VLDs in .257, .284, or .308 caliber bullets. But I have remove the sharp leading edge from the seating plugs with fine sand paper, as necessary.

[Broz]

It can come with different degrees of intensity. The slight line that porwath is talking about, to some I seen of a friends 7mm 180's. They had a indentation in the bullet. Not a scratch, not sharp, but actually a dent pushed into the bullet 1/4 to 3/8" back from the tip where all the seating force was applied to a narrow area causing it to reform the bullet jacket. He was running a lot of neck tension too and the brass had not been annealed. So I feel this was an extreme case. But never the less I would expect these damaged bullets to expand rapidly and could fail. I should also mention this will occure more so when the tip does NOT bottom out in the seating plug. It is a problem that happens from mis-matched angles between the plug and the bullet shapes.

Porwath is correct about sanding. I think it is a good idea for all seating plugs. And then see which one gives the best results.

I found that I prefer the polished 300 win plug on 7mm,180 Bergers when seating them in the 7mm-300 chamberings.

Jeff

[Dr. Vette]

Good tip on the polishing and also using a different seating plug. That wouldn't be a difficult test at all.

[rick523]

Dr. Vette,
I orderd the VLD seater plug from sinclair, already had the one that comes with the seating die. I saw no difference with either load other than the VLD plug is almost half again as long so I had to back the mic. almost all the way out,( I do have a fairly long coal 3.519 with 160gr. vld's ) though. I never noticed any marking with the original plug. I think it's only about $12.00 but I would order something to go with it to help justify the shipping cost. Hope this helps.

Rick, Shot Straight, Shot Once!