Hey Alex. You sent me the reamer print awhile back and then I moved in other directions but I'm back to the NI. For custom stuff I've only used Whidden custom dies, and have never used Hornday dies at all, but it looks like Hornady has your specs. Would I be better off buying from Hornady or sending in 3 fired cases? How close to reamer spec are the Hornady's I guess is my question? I'm not a comp or br shooter, just want to ensure the dies are not the weak point in my setup.I build both. Theres always a little more hassle with improved cases regarding dies but my improved reamer and dies (JGS and Hornady) are both available to the public and they work well together.
What Alex said here is true. I tested a lot of powders with my first couple NMIs. RL33, RL26, IMR 8133, IMR 7977, Retumbo and one or two others. Many of those powders proved a little troublesome with tuning on the NMI while also trying to achieve high velocities. Then I finally started testing N570. Fast speeds with no pressure signs were easy to come by with N570 which made tuning at the higher velocity nodes much easier.I have not owned a standard Norma personally. When you find a combo that works they are all easy to tune. The 30 Nosler, 30-28, and 300 ni all seem to work well with 215s, 230s, and H1000. Heres my opinion on "easy to tune" cases. Those are the cases that someone else has done the work for you, lol. Popular cases with lots of data. When you know what powder and bullet to feed them, tuning is as simple as adjusting powder charge and seating depth. When you have to work from scratch and try 4 different combos to find the right one that groups and gives good ES they get a reputation for hard to tune. I do not think theres much difference in tunability between the 300 norma, 300 NI, 30 and 30-28 noslers as they are all close enough in size to use the same powder and bullet combos and they all seem to respond well to them. One of the hardest to tune rifles I own is my 280ai, took 4 powders to get it happy, now its one of the most impressive rifles I own. If someone had told me to start with rl23, I would be telling you how easy it was to tune The number one reason people struggle with tuning is because the barrel does not like the bullet/powder combo they are feeding it. No amount of tweaking can fix that. The vast majority of these big 30s seem to shoot H1000 and 215/230 bergers, and that makes them easy IMO.