Mikey S.

you know I have seen a few people do what you describe and for the life of me I have never understood why?

It is my belief that you should seat the bullet firmly on top of the powder by applying pressure to the ram rod (not compressing the powder just sitting on top with the same amount of pressure each load). Try to apply the same amount of pressure each time you seat a bullet. I know, and I am shooting loose powder, I can feel and actually hear in the rod when I contact the powder. For yourself anf for now I would mark the rod with a circle around the rod at the point you have the projectile seated. Then you can use this mark each time you load...

The only reason I can think of for bouncing the rod off the projectile is that some projectiles are really tight in the barrel and somebody my have wanted to make sure that the bullet was seated on the powder, to assure themselves that there was not an air gap between the powder and the bottom of the bullet - that can cause some problems.