BONANZA!! Eliminated Runout, Almost
 

I have been beating my head against the wall trying to get rid of runout. Well I have managed to put up a high success rate of .002 or better. I will be making a video in Nov after hunting season.

Here is the written version.

There are things you can do ahead of time to reduce runout....this pertains to seating the bullet.

Equipment:
RCBS CaseMaster guaging tool
RCBS Gold Medal Match die
Press
Brass, powder, bullet etc.
Small jewlers mallet, I used the flat part of my chamfer tool
Oh and most importantly PATIENCE

Step 1:

Run your brass up into the die making sure the neck,shoulder and body, hit the center of the sleeve. You may have to adjust your shell holder or placement if the base of the brass in the shell holder, or both. ( I had to adjust mine every time) Run the brass all the way up to center it. Let it down far enough to fit the bullet into the window. Do not drop it all the way down. Keep the neck in the sleeve.

Step 2: Drop the bullet into the window. Run the bullet into the brass or brass into the bullet, however you want to say it. Seat the bullet so the neck just grabs the base of the bullet. 1/16 to 1/32 of an inch and lower the ram.

Step 3: Take the cartridge out of your shell holder and place it in the RCBS case master guaging tool. Set the tool up so it measure runout at the beginning of the ogive. Spin it to find out how much runout exists.

Step 4: Spin the bullet to find the topside of the runout. Hold the brass firmly in place with your fingers and tap on the tip of the bullet with a jewlers mallet or something flat. Spin the bullet again to measure runout, repeat this process until you have .001-.002 of runout. It is important that the bullet is started straight and true.

Step 5: Put the cartridge back in the shell holder. Get down underneath your press to watch the bullet go into the sleeve. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART. Make sure the bullet and neck are centered in the sleeve. If they are not....all the work you have done can be lost right here. When you have double, triple, and quadruple checked the centeredness by raising and lower the ram and spinning the shell holder or base of the brass to center it. Proceed to seat the bullet.

I loaded up 30 rounds tonight of 300 Win Mag and 90% of them had .002 or better for runout.

This may be confusing, like I said, the video will be coming to youtube in about a month.

Happy reloading.

Yep, that shell holder is generally the culprit. Briman on here took his spring out of the ram and lets his shell holder float. Worked well for me too. I can't say I can achieve 90% less than .002, but I do something simular I bounce my bullet/brass while seating. I will raise the ram right to where it wants to push then drop back down, it will center my brass. I get do get consistent less than 0.003 and .004" this way.

Sounds like you have taken it to a whole new level. I don't blame ya for comp shooting. Everything is everything there.

Is it worth the hassle? I'm already getting 1/4-3/4" groups by just doing it the old fashion way...

Thats up to the user and his purpose I imagine. My limit is what I do. I used to turn necks, fireform and all, but it was too tedious. Made reloading work.

The only thing I do is turn the casing a few times while seating...I've never actually measured run-out.

But I would imagine a comp shooter needing every bit of edge possible...

I'm getting a little PO'D about this..... Been waiting a LOOOONG time for my "Runout Correcter" from Hornaday...
Are they gonna produce these as they've said, or is there a problem??? I think they owe us an explaination.... Just really feel we've been put on and on......

Save yourself some money. I am very disappointed with mine. I think correcting the runout that late in the game could play with your neck tension a little.

Cons:
The metal peices tarnished in less than thirty days in my house.

The RCBS tool was more precise IMO. The hornady said .001 and my RCBS tool said .004. Not sure who was right.

I just wasn't impressed with it.

If you want I would be more than happy to ship you mine, otherwise it is going back to MidwayUSA.

I let mine float as well BC, but that still creates a problem. Get down below your press and watch that brass go up in the die. Just before it goes in, you can see it tip ever so slightly. Same thing coming out. That rubber seal holds onto you brass a little and you can see that brass tip again as it falls back into the shell holder when you lower the ram.

Get that bullet going in the brass straight at the earliest stage. Spinning half way through the seating process has given me mixed results.

You actually got one from Midway??? Now I'm really PO'd. Here I've been waiting patiently for a long time, as they told me it was on back order and would be shipped as soon as they got them in. Ain't that just special??

Thanks for the offer to ship yours to me, but I think I'm gonna sit back and weigh some other options right now.... If you ship it back to Midway, I might just end up with it anyhow...;);)

I too have been using the rubber O-ring trick and it works well enough for me. I've never bought a concentricity gauge to measure runout, just figured a device that would measure AND correct it would be the way to go.... Thanks for the info...

I have found the best way to reduce runout is to turn your necks, ream your case mouths, and square your dies. Good luck.

So how much runout in inches are getting with this method.

How do you square a die?

Tom

My thoughts Exactly:eek2::s1:

The theory was that the threads in your press is too course, so when you tighten down the lock down ring, your sizing and seating dies will not be perpendicular to the shell holder.

So, gun writers have wrote articles telling folks they need to square them. They offer no data on runout before and after, but it gives them something to write about. You basically raise the ram until it touches the bottom of your sizer and lock down your ring. For seaters, you put in a shim to touch the bottom of your sizer and then lock down your seater. The shim has to be square. I got a machinist friend to make me a shim that is flat within .0005". Shell holders themselves probably don't meet .001" spec. So go figure.

I find it makes littlerly no difference whatsoever. But I still do it:s4:. One of those things that won't hurt anything.

So you pull off .25MOA out of all your guns? Thats impressive. I can't say I have one gun that consistently every time pulls off .25MOA. But your doing it for all guns?

Actually I'm minute of a deer with the .06 and 243. And minute of a PDog with the 17 Rem. All with-out square dies, and running out of Run-Out.:)

Well, I suppose this thread on precision probably won't interest you if all you want is to hit a deer.

When I was seeking knowledge when first starting to reload, I faced simular comments. The mediocrity rather irked me. Folks that have been reloading for 30years, and didn't see a need to ever shoot better than 2MOA. They never learned if they could get better and never cared. But for some odd reason, they cared greatly that I cared. When I started, there wasn't internet sources. Just chit chat at the local store, or sierra line, or RCBS help line.

I myself do not want to go to these lengths to get precision ammo, but I say kudos to those that do. You may never need that accuracy or care, but nothing wrong with understanding what is going on. Nothing wrong with being happy with min of deer as you say. Everybody has a want for reloading ammo.

.002 to .001 Good luck.

I would have to say that your method is a little more tedious and time consuming. Especially if you have a lot of brass.

Expand the neck, turn the neck, and resize. Not sure about the inside process but I would imagine it is just as time consuming when you are doing a few hundred brass.