Mountain Cur

Hey guys, I haven't posted in a while because for a long time the site wouldn't let me do any posts or reply's. But anyway I am definitely not an experienced reloader and was wondering if ya'll could explain to me why I'm having OAL inconcsistencies. I'm using rcbs dies in an rcbs press and loading 150 grn. scirrocco II's in .300 win mag. And once I finally get my OAL set I'll load a few rounds and some are short and some are long, I know all my nuts and set screws are tight, so this leads me to believe that there are inconsistencies with the bullets ogives. The bullet seater does seat the bullets on their ogives do they not? By the way, I have adummy round and it don't help at all, I can set it with my dummy round and it will still not be set right, I have to run 3 or 4 rounds before I finally get it set to start with.

bigcountry

When measuring OAL, you want to use a OAL guage on the ogive, not the tip. Your still going to have variations of .002" or so. Stoney point sells them.

Another tip I do is when seating, don't come down in one stroke. I lay the bullet in the case and raise the ram just to push it in a tad, I then rotate the case about 60degrees, I then push in a tad more and rotate some more. I do this three times.

Also lubing the inside of the case mouths with imperial sizing wax, can help with more consistent seatings.

Wilds

What is the difference in measurement you are experiencing..?

COAL really don't mean jack other than a reference point, bullet TIPS do vary and thus the reason to not rely on it.

The ogive measurement is what you need to know, and that's derived from a comparator that measures off the ogive.

The only concern I give to COAL is whether or not the round will function through the mag box.....

If I can allow the seating depth that my chamber likes then I don't give it another thought.

steve4102

Nope. With a long ass, plastic tipped bullet like the Scirrocco the seating die may be seating off the very point of your plastic bullet. Take the seater stem out of the die and place it over one of your Scirrocco's. This will give you a better ideaas to where the bullet come in contact with the seating stem.

mello_collins

Use a Stony Point Products Bullet Comparator / Insert Set to measure your rounds and for get OAL as long as it fits your magazine. I also use the method bigcountry uses. It really did help a lot. I measure every round with the Stony Point and sometimes have to use a bullet puller to get one out a little and reseat. Bullets are mass manufactured and have some variances. I’ll get rid of a few from every box this way. Forster dies seat off of the ogive and are one of my near future purchases.

mello

driftrider

How do the rounds shoot?

I've seen Hornady V-Max bullets vary in bullet length (base of bullet to tip) by as much as +/- 0.005" out of the same box of bullets. I once noticed the same problem you have with my handloads and it drove me crazy, so I started measuring the bullets themselves and made this discovery. Nosler Ballistic Tips are much more consistant, with the variance in length being hardly ever more than +/- 0.002".

I got he Stoney Point Bullet Comparator and found out that the bullet seating was very consistant at measured on the ogive, with +/- 0.0005" the normal tolerance using Redding dies, even when COL (tip to base) was seemingly way off. The loads did shoot very well. I think you're psyching yourself out. Put the loads through paper before you pull your hair out wrestling with minutiae.

Good Luck,

Mike

SJAdventures

I was having this same problem loading core lokts for my 300 saum. Each core lokts measures different depending on how big a glob of lead is on the tip of each bullet. I just bought some Nosler Partition 180 gr Spitzers and measured their OAL before I even started loading any and even though they were not exact they were far more consistant in OAL than the core lokts and whenI loaded some this evening I had no problems maintaining my OCL almost to the exact.

Solitary Man

Some good advise has been offered. Let me add one more thing: Are you compressing the powder when you seat bullets? I've had problems at times with OAL (even measuring with a Stoney Point tool) when the powder was being compressed. Apparently I was getting a little spring back when seating bullets and there was no consistency to how far they were backing out. So, I was getting lots of variation in OAL. More neck tension might have helped, but I don't know.