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Rifles, Reloading, Optics, Equipment
Reloading
Getting the Best Precision and Accuracy from Berger VLD bullets in Your Rifle
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<blockquote data-quote="Unclenick" data-source="post: 2391416" data-attributes="member: 106107"><p>The starting premise of Stecker's paper is that this is not so, particularly not for long, secant-ogive VLD bullets. The late Dan Hackett, a benchrest competitor, wrote of an example in the 1995 Precision Shooting Reloading Guide. He had a 40X rifle in 220 Swift set up for benchrest. He had settled on seating his bullets 0.020" off the lands, which worked for his other guns, but with this rifle, he had been unable to get 5-shot groups better than 3/8" at 100 yards with the average being about 1/2". Then one day, in changing to a bullet with 0.015" lower ogival throat contact point, he accidentally turned the micrometer adjustment on his seating die the wrong way, resulting in seating the bullets 0.050" off the lands instead of 0.020" off the lands. He had 20 rounds loaded before he noticed the error. He considered pulling and reseating the bullets but decided just to use those cartridges in practice. When he did, he got two 1/4" groups and two true bugholes in the ones. </p><p></p><p>There also used to be a description online from a time when Somchem, the South African powder maker, had a service in which they developed loads for customers. They had a customer bring in an old 8mm Mauser that had belonged to his grandfather and that he wanted to hunt with again. Examination showed the throat was shot out beyond any reasonable expectation for performance, but the customer wanted to try anyway, for sentimental reasons. So they agreed to try. The procedure used by Somchem was probably the earliest example I've seen of the method used by Stecker. They got the best load they could with the bullet out in the worn throat and then started backing it deeper into the case. Every time they went deeper the group shrank. When they finally stopped way back off the throat (I don't recall a number; perhaps an eighth of an inch or so) the gun was shooting the smallest groups they'd ever had a gun shoot in the history of that load development service. Something under a third of an inch, IIRC, which is pretty good for hunting rifles.</p><p></p><p>So, seating depth has a bigger range than many suspect it can. Quite a number of folks report finding more than one sweet spot. Most of the first-located ones for conventional length tangent ogive bullets are closer to the 0.010"-0.020" range, but certainly not all, and many report finding two depths that work, one close and one far from the throat, like the old Mauser had. I don't doubt they all are tuned to the load used to find them by this method, but my unanswered question is about the absolute universality of these depths. Are they consistently the best point with that bullet for all powder burn curves and load levels, or do they shift some. I've had some examples where they appeared to shift. I just don't have enough data to present something useful about it. I'm hoping to settle it this summer.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Unclenick, post: 2391416, member: 106107"] The starting premise of Stecker's paper is that this is not so, particularly not for long, secant-ogive VLD bullets. The late Dan Hackett, a benchrest competitor, wrote of an example in the 1995 Precision Shooting Reloading Guide. He had a 40X rifle in 220 Swift set up for benchrest. He had settled on seating his bullets 0.020" off the lands, which worked for his other guns, but with this rifle, he had been unable to get 5-shot groups better than 3/8" at 100 yards with the average being about 1/2". Then one day, in changing to a bullet with 0.015" lower ogival throat contact point, he accidentally turned the micrometer adjustment on his seating die the wrong way, resulting in seating the bullets 0.050" off the lands instead of 0.020" off the lands. He had 20 rounds loaded before he noticed the error. He considered pulling and reseating the bullets but decided just to use those cartridges in practice. When he did, he got two 1/4" groups and two true bugholes in the ones. There also used to be a description online from a time when Somchem, the South African powder maker, had a service in which they developed loads for customers. They had a customer bring in an old 8mm Mauser that had belonged to his grandfather and that he wanted to hunt with again. Examination showed the throat was shot out beyond any reasonable expectation for performance, but the customer wanted to try anyway, for sentimental reasons. So they agreed to try. The procedure used by Somchem was probably the earliest example I've seen of the method used by Stecker. They got the best load they could with the bullet out in the worn throat and then started backing it deeper into the case. Every time they went deeper the group shrank. When they finally stopped way back off the throat (I don't recall a number; perhaps an eighth of an inch or so) the gun was shooting the smallest groups they'd ever had a gun shoot in the history of that load development service. Something under a third of an inch, IIRC, which is pretty good for hunting rifles. So, seating depth has a bigger range than many suspect it can. Quite a number of folks report finding more than one sweet spot. Most of the first-located ones for conventional length tangent ogive bullets are closer to the 0.010"-0.020" range, but certainly not all, and many report finding two depths that work, one close and one far from the throat, like the old Mauser had. I don't doubt they all are tuned to the load used to find them by this method, but my unanswered question is about the absolute universality of these depths. Are they consistently the best point with that bullet for all powder burn curves and load levels, or do they shift some. I've had some examples where they appeared to shift. I just don't have enough data to present something useful about it. I'm hoping to settle it this summer. [/QUOTE]
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Getting the Best Precision and Accuracy from Berger VLD bullets in Your Rifle
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