Pine Marten's free reloading setup finally goes into action, live on the SD!

Pine Marten

Well-Known Member
The bank holiday has finally provided a chance to start attempting to reload. I'm starting with 150gr Sierra HPBTs for practice as I haven't yet managed to obtain those DL1 bullets from France. It's August, and France is closed. Yesterday evening, I set about measuring the OAL by partially setting a bullet and adjusting it in the rifle, so now I should have worked out the ideal length for this bullet and my particular rifle. It's noticeable longer than any of the factory loaded rounds I have. If you have a look at the picture below, you can see my FMJ dummy round on the left. It is 72mm long. Left are three Federal rounds. The first is a 140gr Nosler BT, then a 140gr Fusion, then a 150gr Speer HotCor. They are respectively 70mm, 70m m and 68mm long, all noticeable shorter than mine. Makes sense for a factory round I suppose, it's erring on the side of safety. So here I find my first major difference between reloads and factory rounds. More on this as I progress through the day.
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After ordering a shell holder for my Lee Auto Prime, I found the said item under a flap in a carboard box, as is the way with these things. Using said tool requires a little practice but I've worked it out. In the photo you can see some failed attempts at crimping dummy rounds where I bent the shells, and an upside-down primer which shouldn't even be possible according to the Lee literature. So I now have my first ever 25 primed cases.
 
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I needed a couple of online videos before being confident that I knew how to read the Lee Safety powder scales. It didn't tell you anywhere that the big brass nut is to calibrate them but I worked it out. It's not fast, but it's very precise. I was surprised at how little powder 38.1grains is. Not even a full big yellow scoop, not quite two little ones. It's good fun this, a bit like making model aeroplanes or painting lead figurines when I was a kid. I could get into this.
 
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I'm typing with one hand as YPM is on my lap, as the bank holiday has finally provided a chance to start attempting to reload. I'm starting with 150gr Sierra HPBTs for practice as I haven't yet managed to obtain those DL1 bullets from France. It's August, and France is closed. Yesterday evening, I set about measuring the OAL by partially setting a bullet and adjusting it in the rifle, so now I should have worked out the ideal length for this bullet and my particular rifle. It's noticeable longer than any of the factory loaded rounds I have. If you have a look at the picture below, you can see my FMJ dummy round on the left. It is 72mm long. Left are three Federal rounds. The first is a 140gr Nosler BT, then a 140gr Fusion, then a 150gr Speer HotCor. They are respectively 70mm, 70m m and 68mm long, all noticeable shorter than mine. Makes sense for a factory round I suppose, it's erring on the side of safety. So here I find my first major difference between reloads and factory rounds. More on this as I progress through the day.
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How do you know?


They are erring to the side of SAAMI or CIP spec and consistency.

Frankly, manufacturers spend a lot of time engineering the loads for best performance. I can't tell you how often my best performance and consistency over the chronograph has come from loads with the bullet seated to the manufacturers specs. ~Muir
 
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Not often I agree with anyone, so no offence Muir, but the two most accurate rifles I have both use the standard factory specification loads.

One is in 6mmBR Norma and uses the external dimensions of Norma Diamond Line ammo loaded with Sierra 107gn MKs - no ********ting, it will shoot into the same hole at 100 yards off a bench and I have had great fun shooting through the holes left on a target by a 308W I had just zeroed. I have substituted Viht N140 for the Norma powder but that is only because I use it in the 6.5 and 308 already and didn't want lots of different powders kicking around.

The other rifle is a 6.5x47 Lapua and my standard 123gn load for this is an exact copy of Lapua's own factory load, even down to the powder type and weight. This rifle shot a five round 0.28" group off a bipod and rear bag a few weeks back in preparation for some pot hunting in the Imperial McQueen competition (Gold HPS cross and silver medal)!

To get the load data for both all I did was take external dimensions from 10 factory rounds then pull the same rounds and measure the powder weights as well as look up the manufacturers load data online. Beats all the messing about with different powders and primers trying to get the last ounce of performance out of the cartridge - the manufactures have already spent thousands of £/$ on doing that for you!
 
PM

Looking at the photo with your press & scales in it I see you have a long bolt /studding clamping the press down. That stud has a nice sharp burr on the end just ready to rip into your wrist as you reach round to pick something like you cases up - Cut it off & deburr the end or cover it. We don't want to hear that you've slit your wrist!
Bent shells & upside down primers --- What were you looking at?? --- Look at the detail - that's where the devil is!!

Load safe & enjoy.

Ian
 
I needed a couple of online videos before being confident that I knew how to read the Lee Safety powder scales. It didn't tell you anywhere that the big brass nut is to calibrate them but I worked it out. It's not fast, but it's very precise. I was surprised at how little powder 38.1grains is. Not even a full big yellow scoop, not quite two little ones. It's good fun this, a bit like making model aeroplanes or painting lead figurines when I was a kid. I could get into this.
here you go
 
PM

Looking at the photo with your press & scales in it I see you have a long bolt /studding clamping the press down. That stud has a nice sharp burr on the end just ready to rip into your wrist as you reach round to pick something like you cases up - Cut it off & deburr the end or cover it. We don't want to hear that you've slit your wrist!
Bent shells & upside down primers --- What were you looking at?? --- Look at the detail - that's where the devil is!!

Load safe & enjoy.

Ian

It would be pretty ironic if I were to hurt myself with a bolt whilst handling powder and primers... I shall see to it. As for the bent shells and so on, I was learning to use my particular heterogeneous set of kit. I knew this would happen, which is why I tested everything with dummy rounds. I've decided to dispense with crimping for now. It doesn't seem necessary to hold the bullets securely in place in this case. As I understand it, the key think isn't so much to crimp or not as to be consistent, so I'm going to consistently not crimp. I believe Muir won't like this. I may come round one day, who knows, I'm just starting.

In the end, I only managed to load two lots of five rounds in different loads at the bottom end of my test ladder. But I have everything set up now so if I can find the time to do a batch of five every now and then over the next week, I'll be all set for test rounds. As for the stalking rounds, if that French guy doesn't come back to me in the next few days, I'm going to his counterpart in Germany. They may be a a little pricier, but I bet you they'll actually reply to me and ship the damned bullets.
 
Perhaps I should have said that I hope this rather than think it. We shall find out in September...

I am completely unsurprised that you found you could set your bullet beyond SAAMI maximum length. This is how it is supposed to be. If you found it touched the rifling under SAAMI max. then I would have been shocked.

Setting OAL such that the bullets are touching, or even crushed into the lands, is by no means likely to give best accuracy. It is a technique for advanced reloaders, more applicable to target bullets with jump-sensitive ogive profiles, not hunting bullets in factory chambers.

The smaller the jump the more precise you have to be in every aspect of preparation, measurement and setting up of dies etc. And you may expect small variations to have greater effects than if you were using a sensible tolerance.

And yes, there is a safety aspect. Without a guaranteed modest jump to the lands pressures can spike, even with otherwise safe charges. If tolerances stack up so that a worst case bullet ends up jammed into the rifling then things might go wrong.

Whilst it is interesting to know how far out the bullet can be set before touching, you will not be able determine this accurately unless you use a comparator to measure to the bullet ogive, not the tip.

If you have a comparator, and try measuring some bullets, you may be dismayed to find how variable the distance from ogive to bullet tip is.

Setting up your seating die by measuring to the bullet tip is an acceptable technique if you are using a sensible jump, say 30/1000" or more, but if you are intending to have much less or zero then it is not.

SAAMI spec. for 7-08 is an OAL of 2.530 to 2.800 inches, i.e. 64.26 to 71.12 mm.

http://www.saami.org/PubResources/CC_Drawings/Rifle/7mm-08 Remington.pdf

If you plan to set your bullets at 72mm you are 34/1000" beyond max. spec. Provided they fit in your magazine, and feed reliably, that isn't necessarily a problem, but I wouldn't try this on my very first reloads.

By the way, you may find it easier to use all imperial measurements when reloading. Weights in grains to 0.1, measurement in inches to 1/1000", velocities in feet/second, energies in ft lbs all just seem to work rather better than trying to adapt SI units, nevermind mix and match.

In particular measurement of dimensions to 1/1000" is more practical in the real world than using mm. 0.1mm is too loose. 0.01mm is not measurable with practical tools.

It may not be the French way, but it works well, and is pretty much the standard.

I'd start by setting OAL to 2.800 inches or less, and see how it goes.
 
I have everything set up now so if I can find the time to do a batch of five every now and then over the next week, I'll be all set for test rounds. As for the stalking rounds, if that French guy doesn't come back to me in the next few days, I'm going to his counterpart in Germany. They may be a a little pricier, but I bet you they'll actually reply to me and ship the damned bullets.

Don't try to "do a batch of five every now and then over the next week".

Consistency is everything. You can't dip in and out of reloading. It takes me at least 30 minutes to check my setup (scales, dies, powder, logbook etc.)

I don't start up until I need to do a batch of at least 50, to a known recipe. If I am developing a load I will spend an evening putting together sufficient rounds to cover my ladder. In one session. Not half a dozen rounds at a time.

Do it right, or don't do it.

Don't be distracted. By anything. No radio, phone, telly or screaming kid(s). Total isolation and focus.

Regarding your (unobtainable) esoteric bullets: Good luck. If it is not your intention to shoot your test reloads in the field but wait for some nirvanic bullet before using it against beasts, then you may have a long wait. ISTR you have Nosler BTs, which nobody would say are a bad bullet. I suggest you use them and forget about the esoteric stuff.
 
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Not often I agree with anyone, so no offence Muir, but the two most accurate rifles I have both use the standard factory specification loads.

Then I think we are in agreement? Yes?
I recently loaded some 165 gran SST's in my 308 to Hornady's spec which is basically SAAMI OAL. The brass was small base, full length resized and trimmed. The load was then crimped. The first five shots went into a ragged hole from my T-3 Lite. Like I said, the company spends all the money for research. Might as well use it.~Muir
 
PM. For years I meticulously measured the distance from the origin of the rifling and set my bullets 10,15 or 20 thou' short of touching the origin.
Recently I acquired a Sako Finnlight, which 'needed' the bullets set out even longer than my previous Sako Hunter.
It resulted in blackened cases. (see my thread on blackened cases). The explanation for the blackening was kindly provided by other members.
Muir took a great deal of time to explain and inform me , so that I became convinced that the long seating or 'lands chasing' as he calls it, is a pointless exercise for stalking rifles that are used at normal ranges.
I now seat my bullets to factory length and use the Lee Factory Crimp Die. On 85grain rounds from a .243 travelling at 3,050 fps, the extreme spread is 15 fps. That is pretty consistent and will shoot a lot better than I can. I hope you enjoy your reloading journey.
 
Thanks Uncle Norm. I am grateful for people's advice and sharing their experiences, as indeed I am to all the people on the SD who provided me with all my gear out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm going to make some mistakes and go down some blind alleys on the way. I'm going to make some choices that are different from other people's, and some of them may turn out rubbish, at which point they're entitled to say that they told me so. And then again, maybe some of them will have unexpectedly good results. What I will NOT do is anything dangerous or stupid.

I think that from now on, I shall discuss only results in the open. Discussing the actual process is akin to that debate with Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling last night or talking about badger culling. From now on, such discussions will be held with individuals only and Mr Lee's manual.
 
I am no reloading expert and am not that interested in spending hours developing loads unless I have to. In both 243 and 308 in a couple of different weights I started off the seating depth by putting a factory round in the press then winding the seating die down until contact was made then locking off. In all loads this seating depth worked very well and no further time was spent on it.
 
Thanks Uncle Norm. I am grateful for people's advice and sharing their experiences, as indeed I am to all the people on the SD who provided me with all my gear out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm going to make some mistakes and go down some blind alleys on the way. I'm going to make some choices that are different from other people's, and some of them may turn out rubbish, at which point they're entitled to say that they told me so. And then again, maybe some of them will have unexpectedly good results. What I will NOT do is anything dangerous or stupid.

I think that from now on, I shall discuss only results in the open. Discussing the actual process is akin to that debate with Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling last night or talking about badger culling. From now on, such discussions will be held with individuals only and Mr Lee's manual.

Now then PM don't take it to heart, people are really only trying to help, but with reloading it's a bit like driving ego's are easily bruised :). With this you really do have to learn to walk before you try running. If I may I would suggest that you start by keeping your rounds to within SAAMI spec for OAL, with regard to powder loads have a look in a reloading manual or two, check the manufacturers website and then settle on a weight somewhere in the middle, and try them out, you may have to vary the powder weight but that's OK. As you become more experienced and proficient in your reloading, then would be the time to start your fine tuning. Please don't over think it or over complicate it, just develop a routine for your reloading workflow with regard to case inspection, cleaning, trimming primer pocket cleaning etc. Then move onto to assembling your rounds paying particular attention to consistency to every stage, and then when you become truly satisfied with the end product you can start the fine tuning process. First get good, then get better!

Muir and I spent a long time discussing this over the weekend, old men putting the world to rights we are getting good at it, but looking forward to getting better :old:.

John
 
I was indeed planning on first becoming vaguely competent, hence the fact that I'm starting with a completely tried and tested load. I have Viht data and that's the powder I'm using, with Sierra data, which is bullet I have, and they're almost exactly the same. It is a completely banal round, I'm working my way through the powder weights in 0.5gr increments up to the maximum load in the table and no further. Along the way, I'm learning to use the kit, hence the fact that I crushed a couple of cases and messed up a primer earlier on. But I spotted these, discarded them, and I'm very careful, even nervous, at each stage. I have no delusions of ability at this stage. And I also have a few providers of good advice through the SD with whom I'm in touch individually, some of whom live just up the road if I need help.

This is going to take a while. First results due on 14th September. We shall see!
 
I think that from now on, I shall discuss only results in the open. Discussing the actual process is akin to that debate with Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling last night or talking about badger culling. From now on, such discussions will be held with individuals only and Mr Lee's manual.

oh don't do that!
I take great pleasure in seeing people shoot decent groups from reloads that were done without the requirement of a temperature controlled clean room environment and £50 of measuring equipment!!

and whatever you do don't shoot them of sticks....there will be a riot!

crack on
 
I was indeed planning on first becoming vaguely competent, hence the fact that I'm starting with a completely tried and tested load. I have Viht data and that's the powder I'm using, with Sierra data, which is bullet I have, and they're almost exactly the same. It is a completely banal round, I'm working my way through the powder weights in 0.5gr increments up to the maximum load in the table and no further. Along the way, I'm learning to use the kit, hence the fact that I crushed a couple of cases and messed up a primer earlier on. But I spotted these, discarded them, and I'm very careful, even nervous, at each stage. I have no delusions of ability at this stage. And I also have a few providers of good advice through the SD with whom I'm in touch individually, some of whom live just up the road if I need help.

This is going to take a while. First results due on 14th September. We shall see!

Well, just for fun, I'll start a new thread entitled 'Reloading Howlers'. We will see how many of us 'Old Stagers' will own up to our mistakes.
 
I think that from now on, I shall discuss only results in the open. Discussing the actual process is akin to that debate with Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling last night or talking about badger culling. From now on, such discussions will be held with individuals only and Mr Lee's manual.
That's the way :thumb:
 
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