I recently bought a stoney point oal guage onsale for cheap along with a couple of dummy cartridges in calibers that I reload. I was almost amazed that I got very similar OAl from the guage as I did using homegrown methods. But the OAL guage is just much easier. (I like easy)
My question is: Instead of sending fire formed cases to stoney point to have them make dummy cartridges, could I drill and tap my own? Would there be any safety or technical problems with me doing so?

I dont have one yet but i was thinking the same thing. you know a stuck remover kit does sort of the same thing. you drill out the base and tap it to pull it . let me know if you try it.
and it does look like it would save time. yesterday i sat and made a dummy round for a 243 with a 87 gr hornady. man i wished i had one. i make a dummy round for every round i shoot it makes it a snap to set the seater die.

I load for so many calibers that I had to drill and tap my own, or go broke. There are no problems at all.

Edited by - Weasel on 03/04/2002 22:30:33

I think it would work as long as everything is square. Good luck.

Weasel, after you drill and tap the case, do you run it through a sizer die?

Soarkrebel,
I use a fired case without sizing it at all. You want the bullet to slide into, and out of the case neck.

weasel i would have thought it would have been easier to size it , seat a bullet and push it out to the lands and grooves.
i would have thought this would have the bullet seated better to get a better measurement.i have put a bullet in some fired cases and found that most can be pushed through easily.
what i would like is to make a dummy case of each bullet i shoot . this way i can put it in a shell holder and set my seater die to it.
i'll try it one day i think i'll order one next time i get bullets.

I also drill and tap my own cases for the stoney point gauge. It's best to leave the case unsized. A lee collet die works best if you want to resize the case because you can control the neck tension. If you try to run the case through a full length die you'll make the neck too tight and won't be able to move the bullet to get a measurement.