question about bullets seated out past neck shoulder junction

[AZShooter]

A friend and I were discussing possible problems of a bullet being seated out so the bearing surface is not engaging all of the neck. The cartridge is a 7 STW and the bullet a 180 Berger VLD. The reason is to place the bullet into the rifling. The hunting rifle weighs 10 lb.

Is there a problem with this? He says the bullets would move in the cases held in the magazine during recoil. I say no, if there is sufficient neck tension. IIRC a RCBS die would create a .003" tension which I think would be enough.

I read what David Tubb said about his 6XC:

"Case neck length is .305 inches so a 115 gr. DTAC bullet seated .015 inches in front of the neck-shoulder junction will have .290 inches of neck support at the start of use in a newly chambered barrel. This allows one to keep seating the bullet outward as the throat wears and yet have plenty of case support for the bullet over the life of the barrel. I have used less than .170 inches of neck support with good results when feeding out of the magazine. Seating the 115 gr bullet about .015 inches in front of the neck-shoulder junction gives an approximate overall length (OAL) of 2.750 inches, which will allow you to grow your round (for magazine feeding) more than .100 inches when using a Tubb 2000 magazine."

Perhaps seating out a bit would have a good effect, less neck to make the release more consistent.

I realize we can test the movement of a bullet by placing it in the magazine and shooting several shots through the rifle.

FYI we are not talking about 1/2 the neck not being used, more like .100-125".

Any comments are appreciated.
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[Dano1]

I personally don't see a problem with seating out the bullets that far. And you're right that with sufficent neck tension, the bullets should stay put. The only exception to this situation would be if the bullets in the magazine weren't getting rotated out of the magazine. Meaning, after a shot a new bullet would be placed on top, with this happening over and over in the course of a day of hunting, the bullets can back themselves out of the case. I've seen it happen with a .30-06 and a 165g bullet. Some of the others also grew and when chambered, the bullets got stuck in the rifleings.

After seeing this, I make a mental note to "rotate the bullets" every so often so that this doesn't happen. This is one "argument" for crimping bullets, (which I'm not a fan of).

My reloading mentor (NRA Certified reloading instructor) said that the rule of thumb was to seat a minimum of 1 caliber, for example a .308 was seated atleas 0.308" and so on. He also told me this was a "loose" rule and what ever worked would be OK. There is no other danger except fitting in the Magazine and the above mention situation. Try it. See what happens.

Dan

 

[AZShooter]

Thanks Dano 1 for you ideas. I will share it with my friend.

If anyone else would care to add to this I would appreciate it.

---Ross