Improving my reloading

diverdave

Well-Known Member
I am happy enough with my reloading. I reload mainly hornaday soft point 100gn 243 and Hornaday soft point 30:06 150gn , over H380. I was given an RCBS reloading set up when a pal left the area and have most of the kit, including a tumbler, a case resize lathe thing and all the wee bits and pieces.

I chose this set up to as near the PPU 100 gn i used to use in my 243, i was happy with the results of this and so saw no point in changing.

The results from both calibres are good, i use mid weight powder from the speer manual for both, with no experimentation and get about 1 inch groups at 100mtr all the time. 35 gr with the 243 and 55gr with the 30:06. Another friend taught me to reload and this is what we did that day and this is what i have done eversince. However i know there is much more to it than this and just want a bit more advice.

I dont fully understand the length of round i should be aiming for, based upon the length of the rifle chamber. I know the maximum lengths from the manual, and make every round the same length, as i was tought. Will having this measured and then having the bullet head just touching the rifling make a difference that i will actually notice or make any significant difference. This is just an addition to my hobby, i dont have any desire to be a pro, just another facet to my hobby, like fly tying to an angler and a way of shooting without taking the gun out, i can potter away in my shed, expanding my hobby.


I am not a target shooter, and am actually reasonably happy with the groups. They certainly work. I am just more interested in learning about relaoding at the next level, what improvements can be made and making it all a bit more scientific. Any advice welcome.


cheers

Dave
 
Hi Dave
I start out by varying the charge weight to find the most accurate load using the same seating depth. The next step is to measure the maximum seating depth where the bullet is touching the rifling. There will be numerous threads about how to measure this. Then the seating depth may be varied to find the optimum seating depth for accuracy. Each load may have a different optimal seating depth and charge weight but I generally end up about 10thou off the rifling with normal bullets. Target shooters will often seat bullets touching or jammed into the rifling but for hunting ammo you should have the bullet short of touching the rifling. My Barnes tsx have shot really well at 50 thou off the rifling so I have left it there.

Hope this helps

S
 
Hi Dave
I start out by varying the charge weight to find the most accurate load using the same seating depth. The next step is to measure the maximum seating depth where the bullet is touching the rifling. There will be numerous threads about how to measure this. Then the seating depth may be varied to find the optimum seating depth for accuracy. Each load may have a different optimal seating depth and charge weight but I generally end up about 10thou off the rifling with normal bullets. Target shooters will often seat bullets touching or jammed into the rifling but for hunting ammo you should have the bullet short of touching the rifling. My Barnes tsx have shot really well at 50 thou off the rifling so I have left it there.

Hope this helps

S

Good advise that, I love the Barnes ttsx and do not use anything else, mine are about 20 thou off the lands and produce clover leaf groups at 100m could not be happier......
 
I dont fully understand the length of round i should be aiming for, based upon the length of the rifle chamber.


Dave

It depends a bit if you single feed or load from the mag. It's all a juggling act really. You may be looking for more velocity, better accuracy, less recoil, better barrel life, cheaper components, better case life, etc.

If you are getting 1 inch groups consistently and they are doing the job then you won't find some quick fix to get the groups down to half an inch. I find it's usually fairly easy to get groups from 1.5 down to 1 inch but every fraction after that is increasingly more difficult and usually involves spending money. However - Thats the fun in reloading, the perfect load is out there, you just need to find it.:)
 
You have to be a little bit careful about seating depth with a hunting rifle. 10 thou off the lands is not much.
Chambers are cut to different lengths by different manufacturers.
You have to measure yours then experiment to find the most accurate OAL for the gun.
I do it by making up 5 rounds batches each with a different OAL.
E.G. 0.030", 0.060" 0.090" and 0.120" off the lands
I then shoot each batch of five rounds to determine the most accurate OAL, and then make batches around that figure and retest.

E.G. say 0.060" gave the best accuracy. I then make some batches say 0.070", 0.065", 0.060", 0.055" and 0.050" and test them on the range.

COL Cartridge Overall Length

http://www.larrywillis.com/OAL.html
 
Cheers for the replies folks. I guess where we are with this is that without a lot of time and effort, and perhaps some training my 1 inch groups will not change much. Certainly they are suitable for my needs. I think i will try to find out more about AOL and see if i can slowly improve.
 
Dave
If you are loading to a AOL from the book and are happy using them to mag length , you could now lengthen or shorten the rounds by small increments to find a load that suites the powder / length node that your at .
I think a guy called Brian Litz explains this in articles he has on the net .


Cheers
 
Forget the lands. Outback has it right tho I work it in reverse so that pressures are, in theory, becoming less with each change.

I am constantly amazed with this fixation on distance from the lands. It is, for the purposes of load development, unnecessary. It is an end point, should you choose to recognize it, not a starting point. All the handwringing about The Distance and money spent on tools to measure it are a waste of time and money. I only worry about this when loading for very specific competition rifles, and never with hunting rifles unless I'm using cast bullets. (which require a different set of reloading dynamics)

My method: Set to the minimum OAL if listed, otherwise the base of the bullet to the base of the neck. Just eyeball it for the first loading. It's not critical. Loading minimum charge, measure the length, record that measurement. Shoot it. Record results. Seat outward .020" and repeat the process, stopping .020" short of magazine length. At the point where the accuracy is the best, adjust the powder charge if you feel the need.

No losing sleep. No spending hard earned cash on tools to measure the distance to the lands. Just my hillbilly opinion.~Muir
 
My reason for starting at the rifling and moving out is so that I only move the bullet in a single direction to find the 'sweet spot'. My thought was that if I move ever closer towards the rifling without knowing when the ogive will contact the lands the I run greater risk of a sudden unexpected increase in pressure caused by the bullet jamming into the rifling. I would have thought that knowing the oal where the bullet touches the rifling was a fairly basic measurement to make once you move away from the recipes found in the reloading manuals. Just my 2p worth and I bow to those with greater knowledge of these things than I.

S
 
My reason for starting at the rifling and moving out is so that I only move the bullet in a single direction to find the 'sweet spot'. My thought was that if I move ever closer towards the rifling without knowing when the ogive will contact the lands the I run greater risk of a sudden unexpected increase in pressure caused by the bullet jamming into the rifling. I would have thought that knowing the oal where the bullet touches the rifling was a fairly basic measurement to make once you move away from the recipes found in the reloading manuals. Just my 2p worth and I bow to those with greater knowledge of these things than I.

S

There is an over emphasis on this fear. Even .010" off the lands, the bullet is "jammed" into the rifling at peak pressure.

The distance to the lands is a basic measurement but not an important one when working up loads. With my method, people seldom get too close to the lands unless they do so by choice. A few weeks back a poster on the same subject made the absolutely brilliant and true statement that factory ammo isn't loaded to a set distance off of the lands of "your" rifle. The finest Match ammo is not loaded a set distance off "your" lands either.

I related in that post that there was a time before the Lands fixation that reloading manuals listed seating depth of the bullet, not OAL. This was a decimal fraction of an inch that represented how deeply the bullet should be seated into the neck, and reflected the emphasis placed on neck tension and the variance of combustion chamber volume. It sounds terribly crude to the modern set but it was established practice until people needed to sell tools to measure the distance to the lands and the OAL based on the ogive*. ~Muir

(*another thing you can disregard with this method)
 
I've only been recently having to load my rifle to fit the mag,I started 10 fow shy and worked back,fps lessens as head is sat further in the case,ones I chronied did
 
Thanks Guys

I now think i am thinking too hard. Perhaps i should just keep shooting and enjoy it. The internet is great but we get information on minutia that for a open ground stalker like me is one of the smallest variables. Wind, elevation, atmospheric pressure, cleanliness of the rifle and humidity is probably making more difference than a thou or two difference im my case / oal. The wobbly pink bit behind my rifle probably makes the most difference, and my plan was to make this the weak link. If the set up is as good as i can make it then any errors are mine. However we shoot every week, and are not bad. My little gang is happy with our results. Reducing the groups from an inch to half an inch makes no difference in the enviroment we talk in.

Thanks All!
 
I've only been recently having to load my rifle to fit the mag,I started 10 fow shy and worked back,fps lessens as head is sat further in the case,ones I chronied did

I have had the same happen to me with some rifles and loads. Was it a compressed charge? All powders are different and some compressed charges will do just that. Not that it applies to your situation, but so that no one gets the wrong idea planted in their minds, it is quite possible to have less velocity and more chamber pressure; Velocity and pressure don't run hand in hand.~Muir
 
...The results from both calibres are good, i use mid weight powder from the speer manual for both, with no experimentation and get about 1 inch groups at 100mtr all the time. ..

Dave. To me, it depends what you are shooting. Over ten years ago, I took the view that for me shooting roe deer a 1 inch group in good conditions was not good enough. Since then I've spent a lot of time and money trying to improve my shooting and I'm still trying. When it's a cold damp dull windy winter's day and you are on a clear fell and you get a chance at a 5kg fawn, there isn't a lot to aim at and produce a carcass that's acceptable to put in the larder.

In terms of improving your reloads, two things spring to mind, get the best brass possible for your rifles and focus on brass prep steps to get consistent neck tension.

Good luck. JCS
 
The wobbly pink bit behind my rifle probably makes the most difference,


I think I have found your problem.
You should always make sure your flies are done up when shooting.
Sudden "chYa-Knob'll Fallout" can cause extreme temperature sensitivity and a flinch.

put it away, its safer.
 
Amazing how many feel the need to shoot groups at deer. Why not concentrate on hitting what you are aiming at this will serve better in the long run.
Practicing single shot snap shooting is much more in line with real life hunting than attempting a 'sub MOA' deliberate paper group - ever noticed that the animal rarely obliges to stand still at 100, 200 yds etc while one readys the shot?

As to the reloading, Muir is correct about the 'faddy' lands distance BS!
Start at 1 cal deep and tune your load from there.
Buying the most expensive brass? What a load of old cobblers!
Cheap and simple solution if you are having neck tension problems, more often than not imagined, is a Lee factory crimp die.
It is a useful tool in the box for hunting ammunition.
 
Amazing how many feel the need to shoot groups at deer. Why not concentrate on hitting what you are aiming at this will serve better in the long run.
Practicing single shot snap shooting is much more in line with real life hunting than attempting a 'sub MOA' deliberate paper group - ever noticed that the animal rarely obliges to stand still at 100, 200 yds etc while one readys the shot?

I have to say I agree with this. I spent ages trying to get groups on the bull of the target, as one of my posts points out, however at the end of the day I'm only going to send one on it's way to the deer, so why worry about grouping. It looks nice on paper and does give an initial satisfying belief in your own capabilities. If you can bullseye with your first shot what difference does the other 2 or 3 shots make on the deer, unless your trying to make a right mess of the carcass. Once I stopped trying to group on the bull I found it much easier to single shot it, it transpires that my issue was the bipod jumping, once that was eliminated zeroing was a doddle.

Sorry if this has gone off thread a bit.
 
Dave,

I'm a novice reloader, but have worked up few different loads for my Swede and 7mm Rem Mag which I'm happy with. When I first started reloading I was shown one way of measuring the OAL (using a Stoney Point gauge). This is now part of my routine and when I start out working up a new load I measure the OAL and then back off by thirty thou.

I then work up through the charge weights in half grain increments to find the weight that produces the best groups. The OAL stays as constant as I can get it.

In theory, my next step is to refine the groups by using smaller powder increments (for example .2 grain increments) and then try to reduce the group further by altering the AOL.

In reality, I've never gone beyond the first stage. A fixed AOL and .5 grain increments seems to produce a load that will cloverleaf the bullets at 100 yards when used in my rifles. I've decided that's good enough for my needs and haven't taken it any further. I might be down to chance, but if so I've been lucky five or six times so far.

I've also reached the conclusion that I am probably kidding myself if I believe I can consistantly produce ammunition with an OAL of within plus or minus 5 thou of the dimension I'm trying to produce. I've never been trained in precision engineering, so I can't say for definate, but I believe the kit I've got (press, dies, calipers etc.) and my technique (or lack of it) probably means I could be up to at least .15 though off target. I'm not worried about this because the rounds seem to work regardless.

Hope this helps.

Bob
 
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