Do I need to adjust the seating die to seat each bullet to the same depth?

[rangerdanger]

Or do I just set it to where most of the bullets are the correct overall length and leave it alone? I have the hornady amax seating stem and Hornady Amax bullets. I'm measuring off ogiv.

 

[Sully2]

Or do I just set it to where most of the bullets are the correct overall length and leave it alone? I have the hornady amax seating stem for Hornady Amax bullets. I'm measuring off ogiv.

Once you have it adjusted for ONE bullet of ONE maker...you leave it alone and have at it. Change bullet weights ( which changes the physical size) and you re-adjust or if you change makers ( difference profile) you much re-adjust

 

[dah605]

I replaced the standard seating stem in my Redding dies with the VLD seating stem. I'm typically using the Berger Hybrids. Consistency went up considerably. I'm typically within +/-0.001 now without having to measure each one and adjust.

To get the same consistency without the VLD stem, I used to seat long, measure, and then adjust the micrometer seating die the correct amount to get the same seating depth when I used the standard stem. Just using the stem resulted in +/- 0.003.

The seating stem will likely only help if you are using bullets that more close match the shape of the stem.

-David

 

[Mikecr]

Your seating testing answered this question.
If the best seating window is +/- a few thou, then each round needs to be within it (always verified).

 

[DUSTY NOGGIN]

Or do I just set it to where most of the bullets are the correct overall length and leave it alone? I have the hornady amax seating stem and Hornady Amax bullets. I'm measuring off ogiv.

if you are measuring from the ogive, then seat em the same as each other and don't even care what the tip length is , except learning the length of your chamber determining your jump

then you may want to sort through your bullets with similar measurements from bullet ogive and base of projectile , in that instance i would seat them all equal from ogive , this is where a micro seating die would help you ( quick adjustments )

matching overall length from the tip measurements will cause different problems

 

[PowellSixO]

I know this is a little bit older thread, but NO you can't just set the die and be ok. Or at least not always. Different bullet lots can and will have variances. I personally had a very close call with this recently. I had a lot of bullets that when measured to the ogive using a bullet comparator, you would see as much as .015" difference from one to the other. I set my seating die correctly and measured the first few rounds to make sure things were staying consistent, and then went about pressing the last 45 or so bullets. At the range I shot a 3 shot group, and all was well. My 4th round seemed a bit tight when chambering. I should have stopped right there, but I didn't. The shot went off as normal until I lifted the bolt. It was stiff, and the case didn't eject as it should. I dug the case out of the bolt head, and the primer fell out. ***! I looked closer and discovered massive signs of over pressure, and a collapsed ejector spring. I quit for the day and went home. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what went wrong. So I started measuring the rounds one by one. I load all of my 7mm rounds .001" off the lands. As I went through the 46 rounds I had left in the box, I found half of them to measure .010-.015" longer (still using a comparator) than the rest of the rounds which measured perfect. So .010-.015" longer than the good rounds meant I jammed the one round .009-.014" into the lands!!!! This created a considerable pressure increase, to my already hot load (1 gr off max load). I took all of the rounds apart and measured the powder, the brass, and measured all of the bullets (again using a comparator). Everything was good, except for the bullets. Half of them measured .010-.015" longer to the ogive than the others. So long story short, you can set your seating die and run through you rounds, but you need to measure them one by one as you seat them to make sure you aren't too long. Especially if you load close to the lands. This can lead to a very unsafe situation. Here are a couple of pictures.

Just for information's sake, using my comparator, I measure exactly 2.7275" from the base of the case to the ogive with 168gr berger vlds, in my 7mm rem mag. So anything longer than this is jammed into the lands.


Base of the case with obvious signs of over pressure.



To the lands.





Colapsed Ejector spring, and markings on the bolt head.



Round too long. Jammed .004" into lands.

 

[DUSTY NOGGIN]

I load all of my 7mm rounds .001" off the lands. As I went through the 46 rounds I had left in the box, I found half of them to measure .010-.015" longer (still using a comparator) than the rest of the rounds which measured perfect. So .010-.015" longer than the good rounds meant I jammed the one round .009-.014" into the lands!!!!

at 001 off , your a stud ....i dont dare to get that close, you gotta be way too meticulous for that !!!

me being as new to this as i am to this , i stay well away from my riflings

so is that vld berger shape, the reason for that huge difference in length , im guessing here , do you suppose it because the berger vld has such a long cone shape would require a very consistent thumb pressure on the calipers ???

 

[PowellSixO]

at 001 off , your a stud ....i dont dare to get that close, you gotta be way too meticulous for that !!!

me being as new to this as i am to this , i stay well away from my riflings

so is that vld berger shape, the reason for that huge difference in length , im guessing here , do you suppose it because the berger vld has such a long cone shape would require a very consistent thumb pressure on the calipers ???

Yes these are the Berger VLDs I'm loading. They are a long bullet. All bullet manufactures are going to have variances in length from batch to batch, not just Berger. I do try to measure each one with the same amount of very very light pressure on the caliper. I measure each one 3-4 times to make sure I get the measurement correct. It is very time consuming, but worth the effort. I don't shoot a lot of rounds when I go to the range. Usually I'll only shoot a dozen or so. So when I load a box of 50, I'm good for 4 trips to the range. You should see me trickle powder. I use a balance beam scale and trickle every single powder charge, and zero my scale after every 20th charge. Lol. If it's a gnat's *** off I'm not happy. I'm relatively new to long range shooting, and haven't made the plunge into a custom 1/4 moa rifle yet. So I do the next best thing, and get my reloads as perfect as I can. So far I've been able to get all of my budget rifles to shoot sub moa. I'm in the works of getting a custom 7mm RUM built though. I'll probably be even more anal about reloading for it though. If you load your rounds far enough off the lands, you can set the die once and go for it. The point I was making, was that if you load near the lands, you need to measure every round that you load. So you can avoid issues like mine, or even worse.

 

[DUSTY NOGGIN]

i hear you im just making coinversation

possibly a tighter than normal case mouth , caused you to have to push a little harder in order to start the seat, possibly causing a slight deformation at the contact point of the seater plug leaving it long at the ogive

would you consider the core on the bergers , soft .. compared to other jacketed bullets ??

 

[PowellSixO]

i hear you im just making coinversation

possibly a tighter than normal case mouth , caused you to have to push a little harder in order to start the seat, possibly causing a slight deformation at the contact point of the seater plug leaving it long at the ogive

would you consider the core on the bergers , soft .. compared to other jacketed bullets ??

I wouldn't know bud honestly. I've cut a few of them in half just out of curiosity, but couldn't tell you if they're any softer than others. I can tell you that the top 10-15% of the bullet is hollow, and the rest of the core of the bullet is lead (or at least I think it's lead). I can tell you for a fact though, that they kill with authority. I've killed one bull elk at 400 yards on the dot (with the 7mm 168gr VLD), that didn't go anywhere. In fact I took a frontal shot on him, and he sat down and rolled over backwards dead. I killed a 150" white tail buck at 476 yards with my 243 win (6mm 87gr VLD), and he went maybe 20 yards at the most. I hit him in the last rib, quartered away from me, and it turned his lungs and heart into soup. I also killed one mule deer buck with them, at 175 yards (running shot, again with the 87gr VLD), and he flipped ***** over head. He was dead before he hit the ground. I've only been hunting with them for these 3 hunts, so I really only have that experience with them. But I'm confident enough in the VLD's to use them this fall on a late rifle bull hunt that I drew, and my first ever coues deer hunt that I also drew. The stopping power these bullets have is stupid. They do exactly as advertised. They go in a few inches and shed almost all of their weight (you only find bits and pieces of the bullet inside), and do massive damage. If you hit them right, they aren't going anywhere.

 

[rangerdanger]

I'm trying to get straighter no turn necks. What do yal think about using the neck die with no ball and stem then the Sinclair mandrel to expand before seating?

 

[Mikecr]

I'm trying to get straighter no turn necks. What do yal think about using the neck die with no ball and stem then the Sinclair mandrel to expand before seating?

Works better, but that subject should be another/separate thread.