What is going on? COAL coming up short

[pburton]

OK, so I am new to long range shooting, hunting, and reloading. I have been hunting for over 30 years but never "long range" hunting. Over the last couple months I had a custom rifle built. I received the rifle back today. It looks great and is exactly what I was going for. It is a 7mm Rem mag built on a 700 action with a Bartlien barrel. Trued action and bolt lugs. I have never reloaded for any of my previous rifles. I always used factory ammo. Well with this custom build I decided to try to start reloading. Once I got my rifle back today I mounted the scope and checked for Case over all length with the Frankford COAL kit that I have. I followed the direction exactly and came up with a COAL of 3.135 after several checks and several bullet types. That is a considerable amount short of what my reloading books say it should be. Am I doing something wrong or did the smith that built this rifle not do something right? Even factory ammo is longer than this. I am completely confused. Now I did chamber a couple of factory rounds and they chamber fine. That is two totally different rounds with different OAL. Should I just try and see how this works out or should I take this back to the smith and make him fix it? My hope was to load 168gr Hunting VLD's.

 

[Mikecr]

The Frankford COAL kit appears to be a plastic *** to me.
Did you try seating a bullet long with light neck tension, a little lube on the bullet nose, extracting the round, and measuring COAL?
Probably more accurate than what you're using.

 

[pburton]

That is what I thought. Although it was recommended to me by a couple of other members on here. I agree that it truly does seem like a ***. Like I said earlier I am a rookie to reloading. Thanks for the other options. I will see how that turns out..

 

[pburton]

Mikecr,
So I tried your way and came up with a completely different COAL. Thank you! I feel much better about this than I did. The COAL that I came up with this time is 3.390. That makes a whole lot more sense. I really appreciate the help. After doing that I feel pretty dumb.

 

[FearNoWind]

Scenar bullets can be a bit problematic. Take a sample of ten new bullets out of the box and compare their base to ogive measurement. Then measure them base to tip. You'll find that the difference in their measurements is the ogive to tip distance which tends to vary, even with the same lot, and the taper (ogive radius) from tip to ogive can also vary so that the seating die contacts some bullets at a different point on the radius than others. That's why I recommend using CBTO rather than COAL when measuring lengths of loaded rounds for consistency.
The Hornady Bullet Comparator and a good dial caliper works well for that purpose.

http://www.brownells.com/reloading/...r-set-22-6mm-25-270-7mm-30-cal-prod35659.aspx

 

[FEENIX]

Scenar bullets can be a bit problematic. Take a sample of ten new bullets out of the box and compare their base to ogive measurement. Then measure them base to tip. You'll find that the difference in their measurements is the ogive to tip distance which tends to vary, even with the same lot, and the taper (ogive radius) from tip to ogive can also vary so that the seating die contacts some bullets at a different point on the radius than others. That's why I recommend using CBTO rather than COAL when measuring lengths of loaded rounds for consistency.
The Hornady Bullet Comparator and a good dial caliper works well for that purpose.

http://www.brownells.com/reloading/...r-set-22-6mm-25-270-7mm-30-cal-prod35659.aspx

+1! Here's a couple of nice article on CBTO ...

Effects of COAL and CBTO | Part 1 | Berger Bullets Blog

Effects of COAL and CBTO | Part 2 | Berger Bullets Blog

Good luck!

 

[pburton]

Thank you for your responses. This makes complete sense.