Seating depth (again..)

User00003

Well-Known Member
Hi,

sorry for re-touching on this ever popular topic of seating depths. So I took a fired case, where my bullet can be hand seated at the tip of the neck, seated it in the chamber and closed the bolt. Retracted the bolt and the case/bullet, measured the OAL at 2.717. This is significantly above the recommended COL on Hornady's site being around 2.6 (I say around because they only give 85g and 90g COL's), but the bullet at 2.717 is already sitting with the boat tail marginally below the bottom of the neck?? I imagine when I closed the bolt, the bullet was pushed to sit flush with the lands (correct me if I'm wrong), and that I should probably seat it at least 10 thou's further back,,which would be 2.707,,right?,,,however, is that far close to the lands given Hornady's recommendations? but then again would seating it deeper not cause excessive pressure since the tail would dip into the cartridge? so many questions....................suss.......
 
For the love of God, shoot it already. :D It is your only option other than abandoning that bullet until you find one that matched Hornady's OAL recomendation. :scared: Reloading manuals are only a GUIDE. A smart shooter adjusts to their weapon... as you have done. I doubt if the boattail being in below the shoulder will hurt unless you were running excessive loads to begin with.~Muir
 
For the love of God, shoot it already. :D It is your only option other than abandoning that bullet until you find one that matched Hornady's OAL recomendation. :scared: Reloading manuals are only a GUIDE. A smart shooter adjusts to their weapon... as you have done. I doubt if the boattail being in below the shoulder will hurt unless you were running excessive loads to begin with.~Muir

ha ha ha ha...:lol: true that, we'll give it a test whack asap and see what happens, maybe put some safety glasses on,,just in case
 
For the love of God, shoot it already. :D It is your only option other than abandoning that bullet until you find one that matched Hornady's OAL recomendation. :scared: Reloading manuals are only a GUIDE.~Muir

AMEN!

Regards,
Paul
 
I've loaded some .270 that exceed the book OAL. The only issue that I have and will rectify when I do the next batch - I'll need to seat a couple of thou deeper as the cartridge is snagging slightly, they're a little long for the magazine.

DC
 
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