Altering Factory Ammo Seating Depth

[Bravo 4]

Does anyone here change the seating depth on factory ammo to improve precision? My rifle seems to like seating depths that are longer than SAAMI COAL and I was thinking that pulling and resetting bullets in factory match loads might improve precision as well. With components scarce, I'm looking to get better groups with what I have.

Yes, I did it with my 7.62 AR and M118LR rounds. Amazing what a little bump in seating depth can do. Didn't change velocity or POI in that rifle, just tightened the groups up.


To the other posters, good job stealing the man's thread.

 

[benchracer]

I was following the thread with interest 'til it took a dive. I have some Barnes VOR-TX ammo in .243 that shoots 3+" groups @ 100 yards. I am planning to tweak the seating depth to see if I can get it to shoot better.

I don't understand how or why pulling and re-seating bullets from factory ammo would be any different than re-loading ammo and thought it curious that the initial responses framed it as a questionable practice.

One thing I had considered doing was measuring the powder charges in the factory rounds to check for uniformity and then hand weighing each charge before re-seating the bullets.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Yes, I did it with my 7.62 AR and M118LR rounds. Amazing what a little bump in seating depth can do. Didn't change velocity or POI in that rifle, just tightened the groups up.


To the other posters, good job stealing the man's thread.

It wasn't intentional and I was about to get back on track, but you beat me to it.

It would entirely depend on caliber as to whether I would stretch rhem out or not, if I was buying factory loads, which I don't as a rule.....

As I said previously, maybe 5 times in 20 years....