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Rifles, Reloading, Optics, Equipment
Reloading
Max COAL questions
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<blockquote data-quote="Engineering101" data-source="post: 1275626" data-attributes="member: 63138"><p>No you don't need to measure COAL off the bullet ogive. If you did you would find your bullets closer to the same length than if your measurement includes the tip. Also max COAL as listed by the manufacturers is nothing more than a reference that tells you how they setup their loads. That is almost always the length that you DO NOT want to use for your ammo. Chances are your ammo will be more accurate if you seat the bullets closer to the start of the lands. The way to do this is to make some tooling for each of the rifles for which you load. The tooling is a fire formed case that has had the neck split with a hacksaw (and burrs removed with a file inside and out). This allows you to put a bullet in the case and chamber the round. Take the round out of the chamber and measure it for overall length. Do this with several samples of the bullet to get the most consistent number. The resulting number is the overall cartridge length that will just fit in your chamber with the bullet just touching the lands. Many of my loads are most accurate about 0.005" off the lands so I usually start there. I may end up putting the bullet 0.020" or 0.050" off to get best accuracy. You also have to consider magazine length if that is a concern. The trick with getting this tooling to work is relatively stiff neck tension on the bullet. You may have to resize your tooling (the case with the split neck) to tighten it up. You should be able to adjust the bullet seating depth by hand but just barely. I do this for every bullet I load. You can also use the tooling to setup your seating die. Good luck.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Engineering101, post: 1275626, member: 63138"] No you don't need to measure COAL off the bullet ogive. If you did you would find your bullets closer to the same length than if your measurement includes the tip. Also max COAL as listed by the manufacturers is nothing more than a reference that tells you how they setup their loads. That is almost always the length that you DO NOT want to use for your ammo. Chances are your ammo will be more accurate if you seat the bullets closer to the start of the lands. The way to do this is to make some tooling for each of the rifles for which you load. The tooling is a fire formed case that has had the neck split with a hacksaw (and burrs removed with a file inside and out). This allows you to put a bullet in the case and chamber the round. Take the round out of the chamber and measure it for overall length. Do this with several samples of the bullet to get the most consistent number. The resulting number is the overall cartridge length that will just fit in your chamber with the bullet just touching the lands. Many of my loads are most accurate about 0.005" off the lands so I usually start there. I may end up putting the bullet 0.020" or 0.050" off to get best accuracy. You also have to consider magazine length if that is a concern. The trick with getting this tooling to work is relatively stiff neck tension on the bullet. You may have to resize your tooling (the case with the split neck) to tighten it up. You should be able to adjust the bullet seating depth by hand but just barely. I do this for every bullet I load. You can also use the tooling to setup your seating die. Good luck. [/QUOTE]
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Max COAL questions
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