Few seating depth questions

[brentc]

We tighten up the neck (tight neck) only to reduce the amount we work the brass, not for accuracy.

I don't disagree, but this is not the common understanding. I think that neck turning is overall misunderstood and many people do it just to do it because they think it makes a performance difference because the guy at the range said so.

 

[Greyfox]

After working with more then a dozen rifles over the years that resulted in optimum seating depths ranging from .010" to .100 off the lands. Two of my most accurate rifles are .075" off the lands with JLK and Berger VLD's. I like to initially run tests of 3-5 shot groups at .030" intervals. Once the tightest group is found, I may then try .005" intervals on either side of the best result from the initial test. Sensitivity to seating depth can vary depending on a particular barrel/bullet combo. The optimum seating depth has generally held for a given particular barrel/bullet regardless of my choice of powder, primer, or brass. As has been claimed, I have found the VLD's to be far more sensitive to seating depth then the hybrid or conventional bullet designs.

 

[Lonewolf74]

So I did my own variation of the seating depth test this wknd. I went with .015 intervals starting at .005 off the lands. .005 and .020 off shot good but to my surprise. 030 off shot like crap which I thought was a sweet spot before. Then .045 off shot phenomenal best group I ever printed with this rifle, pretty much a jagged one hole group. Then the rest going further off lands opened up more.

So before I get too exited I'm gonna load up more at .045 off to verify but it looks like a winner.

One thing I learned is that there may be multiple sweet spots for a particular combo. .005 and .020 off shot good and I think I could do some fine tweaking at either depth to get them as good as .045 off shot.

Alex I also believe more you may be right that a sweet spot is only a few thous wide