seating into the lands?

[D.S.]

Im shooting the 105 berger vld's in my new 8twst .243 and everyone is telling me that I need to try seating these bullets .010-.015" into the lands rather than my current seating depth which is .010" off of the lands--Your thoughts?--How much should I back off of the powder?
Thanks for your help, Drew

 

[LWolken]

I burned about half my barrel trying to get the various 6mm VLDs to shoot when seated into the lands. Everyone was talking like that was the only way to shoot them. Well I finally wised up and shot some loads around .020" off the lands and found best accuracy there. Like 3/8" groups at 200yds (5 Shot groups. Try some of both.

Lance

 

[Guest]

I am not sure how one could seat them into the riflings 10, 15, or 20, it seems like to me that once the bullet makes contact with the rifling then that would be it. You might be able to go farther if you had very tight neck grip thus not allowing the bullet to be push down into the case.

But as far as your powder charge that you are asking about, it would depend as to the charge you are using now. We have no idea if you are at "full" throtle or what.

If you are at "max" now, then I would reduce my charge a 1/2 gr. But only go no more than .010's farther out and try it. I do not have a lot of experiance in using B.T. bullets, but the one's that I have used have mostly shot the best @ .050's off...but as you know every rifle is different.

Good Luck

 

[lynn]

When loading VLD bullets most of the un i have prefer them hard into the lands.My reamers are cut with a 1.5 degree lead angle and with 0.003 of neck tension you can get them to just make contact or you can get them to have a large mark put on them by the rifling.My method is to seat them very long and let closing the rifles bolt seat them.This is as deep as you can seat them.I then adjust my seater die down until it is a snug fit and load up several rounds.From this point it is easier to work back as you are only going in one direction from a known maximum.
Lynn