fishwater
Well-Known Member
A little background info:
I have been reloading for about a year, which has lead me to this sight, which has taught me that there is still a lot I need to learn about it.
I reload for 3 Weatherby rifles. A Vanguard .22-250, a Vanguard .270WIN, and a MarkV .30-378, I also have friends come over to reload for some other calibers on occasion.
My setup is pretty basic (all RCBS), I have a Rockchukar press, a chargemaster 1500 scale, (I dispense powder by hand, but do it very accurately.) A manual case trimmer, a hand priming tool, and a pair of Cabelas digital calipers, (the nicer ones.) I use the basic RCBS die sets. I also have a Chrony Alpha that I use, and I usually get my loads all within 50FPS of one another, but sometimes it is as much as 100FPS.
I Chamfer and de-burr the necks with a cheapo hand tool, and also have a cheap primer pocket brush that I use every time.
Things I have never done: Neck turning, primer pocket uniforming or flash hole deburring, weight sorting my brass, checking concintricity/runout, or case tumbling/cleaning... (I blow them out with my air compressor really good every time.)
What I want to do is produce a better handload, without having to buy all new dies. I am pretty much an MOA shooter right now, but I would really like to start getting some smaller groups. I just learned about runout and want to know if neck uniforming/trimming or maybe one of the RCBS 3 way chamfer/deburring trimmer attachments would help. Also, I just learned about the Hornady concentricity gauge yesterday, but after a little research it seems that is not really an ideal solution and the Sinclair concentricity gauge is a lot better, even though it does not make "corrections."
All my rifles have good triggers, and there are Zeiss scopes on the Vanguards. I just bought a Nightforce NXS 5.5-22X56 for the .30-378 but it's not even mounted yet! I have Medalist stocks for all 3 of them on order from Stockey's.
What can I do, that I am not already, to produce a better handload?
What is really important and what is just a bunch of hype? There seems to be mixed opinions about some of this stuff, and I am a little confused!
I know this was a pretty long post. Thank you for taking the time to read it.
I have been reloading for about a year, which has lead me to this sight, which has taught me that there is still a lot I need to learn about it.
I reload for 3 Weatherby rifles. A Vanguard .22-250, a Vanguard .270WIN, and a MarkV .30-378, I also have friends come over to reload for some other calibers on occasion.
My setup is pretty basic (all RCBS), I have a Rockchukar press, a chargemaster 1500 scale, (I dispense powder by hand, but do it very accurately.) A manual case trimmer, a hand priming tool, and a pair of Cabelas digital calipers, (the nicer ones.) I use the basic RCBS die sets. I also have a Chrony Alpha that I use, and I usually get my loads all within 50FPS of one another, but sometimes it is as much as 100FPS.
I Chamfer and de-burr the necks with a cheapo hand tool, and also have a cheap primer pocket brush that I use every time.
Things I have never done: Neck turning, primer pocket uniforming or flash hole deburring, weight sorting my brass, checking concintricity/runout, or case tumbling/cleaning... (I blow them out with my air compressor really good every time.)
What I want to do is produce a better handload, without having to buy all new dies. I am pretty much an MOA shooter right now, but I would really like to start getting some smaller groups. I just learned about runout and want to know if neck uniforming/trimming or maybe one of the RCBS 3 way chamfer/deburring trimmer attachments would help. Also, I just learned about the Hornady concentricity gauge yesterday, but after a little research it seems that is not really an ideal solution and the Sinclair concentricity gauge is a lot better, even though it does not make "corrections."
All my rifles have good triggers, and there are Zeiss scopes on the Vanguards. I just bought a Nightforce NXS 5.5-22X56 for the .30-378 but it's not even mounted yet! I have Medalist stocks for all 3 of them on order from Stockey's.
What can I do, that I am not already, to produce a better handload?
What is really important and what is just a bunch of hype? There seems to be mixed opinions about some of this stuff, and I am a little confused!
I know this was a pretty long post. Thank you for taking the time to read it.