wvbow

What is the best way to determine bullet seating depth in relation to the lands of the barrel without expensive equipment.

the Razorhead

well, the easiest way is keep seating a dummy round further and further out untill it gets engraved by the rifling...

establish your seating depth FIRST, before working up from a starting load.. the amount of freebore in a given chamber may vary pressure 2,000 psi or more...

wvbow

I drop a bullet down the chamber of my rifle then stick my cleaning rod down the muzzle until it touches the bullet, then I mark my cleaning rod. Next I remove the bullet from the chamber, close the bolt, then stick my cleaning rod down the muzzle and mark it again. Finally I use my calipers to measure the distance between the marks I made on my cleaning rod. This gives me the MAXIMUM length. On the maximum length measurement I take off about .015 inches. That gives me clearence off the lands of the barrel.

driftrider

Wow, posting a question and then answering it two posts later! That's a new one!

I use a Stoney Point Overall length gauge, and bullet comparator attached to my digital caliper (which all handloaders should have). Lets me see exactly how far out I can seat the bullets before they hit the lands. None of my rifles have a throat short enough to allow the bullet to be seated within .01" of the lands and still have enough bullet in the neck and/or fit in the magazine.

Mike

Mykey

The Stoney Point Overall length gauge and bullet comparator are also what i use. It's money well spent and a good investment for a reloader. It works very well.

wvbow

Sorry, I worded the question wrong I ment to ask What is everyones favroite way to seat a bullet SORRY.

speyrjb

I take a fired case, trim it and re-size the neck about 1/4 of the way down.

Then I seat a bullet in the case just far enough so the bullet doesnt fall out of the case. I then chamber the dummy round into the rifle very slowly so the lans push the bullet down into the case. I remove the dummy and measure it. This tells me what the distance to the lans are for that particular bullet.

It works for me. Not as accurate as that Stony Point guage but all I'm looking for is a rough estimate anyways. My rounds are never loaded anywhere near that length. I've always been able to find an accurate load with significant clearance of the lans. I've had better luck working up shorter loads than longer ones in the guns I've loaded for. Just my experience tho.

bigcountry

You know I was showing mossy my stoney point guauge and kept getting inconsistent readings for the first time in years. And looked like a horses ass. It was a 25-06 and using 85gr and 115gr I think BT. I kept getting 3.11" COL , but he kept getting 3.22". I am not sure if there was a burr inside the chamber or the case. I was using a cleaning rod to put opposite pressure to increase my sensitivity. So I finally just pushed the bullet into the rifling until it stopped. And was matching what he saw. Since 3.2" is SAAMI specs, I suspect, 3.22" was the correct number.

First time I had inconsistent measurements.

mossy33oak

Yeah, I was at Bigcountry's house yesterday and we were using his Stoney point OAL guage. My observation (since ive never seen one used before) is that it can give two different people two different results, depending on how hard/far you push the bullet onto the lands, AND how still you hold the device while you tighten the thumb knob on the back. I measured both ways (using the bullet in the casing and closing the bolt and the stoney point) and I got numbers that were kinda close 3.23 with the guage and 3.19 the old way. So i guess my best bet would be to use the stoney point over and over again and try to get a routine down that I can repeat the same way everytime. Then do 3 and take an average.?!?[&:][&:]

Solitary Man

I take a fired, unsized case and squeeze the end of the neck with a pair of plyers just enough to keep a bullet from falling out. I then insert a bullet into the case about 1/8" or so and chamber the dummy round in my rifle. I extract it very carefully and measure the OAL. I then do this same thing with another 10 or 12 bullets from the same box and after measuring them all, I calculate the average OAL to the lands. From this number I usually start my loading by backing off another .010 to .030". This works very well with plastic tipped bullets as they are quite consistent in length. Works well with Barnes bullet too, though I seat these .050" off the lands. With lead tipped bullets like the Nosler Partition or Hornady Interlock I just load them to book max OAL.