Reloading Steps/Seating Depth/Accuracy

[jsthntn247]

I bought a 7ss off a buddy that had 100 rounds on it. 2 firings on 50rnds of brass. Shot it yesterday and today for the first time. Yesterday I was lazy and just ran a brush through the neck, resized the brass, primed and loaded. When seating bullets some were extremely hard and all were hard. My seating depth varied by .010. I took them to the range and best I could get was .75" with some being 2". Knew it wasn't the gun so last night I annealed the brass, ultrasonic cleaned it, dried it in the oven, lubed the necks with spray dry film graphite, resized, trimmed and chamfered, primed and loaded. This time all bullets seated within .001. I took the same loads (powder and seating depths) as the day before and the largest group was .75" and the smallest was a ragged hole. Hate to have to use competition prep for hunting loads but guess if it works, it works. Hope this helps someone else if they are having issues with a rifle. Oh, I do have an automatic annealer but didn't feel like getting it out and setting it up so I just used a drill and socket over a torch, something that anybody can do.

 

[QuietTexan]

20 some odd years ago the Houston Warehouse Test put out a lot of data about brass prep and specifically how the fit between the bullet and neck is significantly more important than other variables, specifically charge weight. He challened a lot of the assumptions of the time, but I'm pretty sure if someone re-ran his tests but using modern computer-assisted measurements like AMP is doing with their annealer and press they could quantify some of his voodoo - hand seating pressure and manual annealing mainly.

Secrets of the Houston Warehouse – Lessons In Extreme Rifle Accuracy

Back in 1993, Precision Shooting Magazine printed a landmark article about the findings of a group o...

precisionrifleblog.com

Obviously practical hunting rounds can't be subjected to the tolerances he used, but the overall lesson of brass prep matters is key, as you just proved out again. It's an important lesson to remember, thanks for the reminder