seating depth problem

[cookjp]

Ok Guys help this newbie out. I am having trouble getting consistent seating depths for my 22-250. I set the seating die up and load a few and get the same reading then I will have one or two that are off by up to a hundreth or so then they will go back to the set up lenth. I am using a Forster benchrest seating die and loading brass that is all cut to the same lenth. Loading 53gr hornady match hollow points I have measured the bearing surface on all and they match. The brass is mixed head stamp but all preped to be the same. help I am lost on this one.

[CRNA]

Ok, I'm new at this too, so it may be a case of the blind leading the blind here. I ran into the same problem. Then I measured the lengths (overall length) of several of my SMKs and they varied by a thousandth or so. I think its just a difference in the meplat in my case. Possibly the same problem you are having. I just get them close to the OAL I want the loaded cartridge and go with it. If you keep changing the seating depth then you are going to be chasing your tail I think. If you do it that way then you are going to end up with a different OAL every time you change. I just make them all the same and don't try to chase it down.

[BuckSnort]

Two questions..

How are you measuring OAL?

Is it a compressed load?

[flashhole]

That's my question too. How do you measure OAL? If you are measuring from the tip of the bullet and not a point on the ogive you will never get consistency and lengths will be all over the map.

[CRNA]

Originally Posted by flashhole

That's my question too. How do you measure OAL? If you are measuring from the tip of the bullet and not a point on the ogive you will never get consistency and lengths will be all over the map.

Don't mean to hijack, but how do you do that? How do you measure from one particular point on an ogive and get consistent readings?

[RT2506]

You need to measure from the O-give of the bullet to the base of the case. You need a bullet comparator to do this. There a different types of comparators. Check them out at Midway PTG comparator product # 365-447 & 746-974 or Hornady product # 348-740 .

Bullet tips are different but the O-give is usually consistent in the same lot of bullets. Where you can run into problems is if the bullets came from different lots or were made on different machines.

[cookjp]

Originally Posted by BuckSnort

Two questions..

How are you measuring OAL?

Is it a compressed load?

I am using the hornady comporator set to measure OAL off the bullet ogive, and it is not a compressed load.