Sorting your bullets by ogive lehgth

Its not unusual to see that difference in length. Your dealing with a 30 cal from what i'm reading and the pressures are pretty high on the press and dies.
Just be careful on your core seating pressures/ It looks like lube also is having an effect on your final length.
Try some anhydrous lanolin for your lube and use a bit extra to see what happens. I think your not useing quite enough.
Tool steel dies will do this quite a bit more then carbide dies.
You can opt to have a carbide point die made, that should help
Sorting bullets is really a good idea for match shooting but for practice it may not matter as much.
I hope this help you out some and your problems get fewer.
PS I hope you have a good press also, you may be getting some spring back
 
Fla mac said:
All,
After doing some work on reloading bullets of different ogive lengths, I found that you have to work with each ogive length to get the right OAL roung lenght. It is not the difference between one ogive length and the next. I start at just coming in contact with the lands and add .010".
john
Mims, Fl
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This was the point I was trying to make earlier. as little as .001 difference in loaded OAL, measured from the butt of the case to where the bullet engages the lands will open up one's group and /or allow the bullet stray away from dead center of what one is trying to hit.

I measure all of the bullets I buy and sort them by .001 difference in Ogive length. All this does is allow me to more easily come up with loaded rounds that are closer to exactly the same without adjusting them. I use an old turret press and have a bullet puller set up in it so that I am easily able to adjust my OAL's as I load. Many people don't agree with my method but I know in doing what I do I have given myself the best oportunity to score the best my equipment and I are capable of doing. If only I could find a way to do better with WHEN to pull the trigger :( !

I bought some of the new Bergers to try. It will be interesting to see how they measure up.
 
Peter W.- I would argue that if you have a load that opens up with only .001" change in seating depth, then you do not have the most consistent/best load for that rifle/barrel. Any load that I have found to be on a node can withstand up to .003" seating depth variation and a couple of tenth difference in powder charge without changing poi for short range br with a 30br. I must admit that my shooting/testing has been limited to only the 30 br.

Wilbur-your earlier statement about ogive to seater stem relationship is spot on (I know you didn't need me to tell you that :) you have forgotten more than I will ever know}, but is was contingent on the seater stem touching the ogive of the bullet. Mine certainly does not even come close. The problem sorting bullets by base to ogive measurement of the bullet is that that is not the crucial relationship that needs to be measured. The variance that makes a difference when seating is the difference between bullet's ogive and where the seating stem touches. If there is different from bullet to bullet in that relationship, then the bullet will seat differently in relation to the ogive. I have not found a way to measure that relationship. The measuring from base to ogive to get consistent seating is akin to sorting cases by weight in an attempt to get cases that are the same volume.

For what it is worth, I believe one way to counter seating variance is to have a hard jam. Obviously, you need to seat where the barrel shoots the best but a hard jam will tend to neutralize differences in seating depths as the barrel becomes the seater and it will be the same from bullet to bullet. This is just my two cents and probably not even worth that after inflation. Randy J.
 
Randy Jarvais said:
Peter W.- I would argue that if you have a load that opens up with only .001" change in seating depth, then you do not have the most consistent/best load for that rifle/barrel. Any load that I have found to be on a node can withstand up to .003" seating depth variation and a couple of tenth difference in powder charge without changing poi for short range br with a 30br. I must admit that my shooting/testing has been limited to only the 30 br.

Wilbur-your earlier statement about ogive to seater stem relationship is spot on (I know you didn't need me to tell you that :) you have forgotten more than I will ever know}, but is was contingent on the seater stem touching the ogive of the bullet. Mine certainly does not even come close. The problem sorting bullets by base to ogive measurement of the bullet is that that is not the crucial relationship that needs to be measured. The variance that makes a difference when seating is the difference between bullet's ogive and where the seating stem touches. If there is different from bullet to bullet in that relationship, then the bullet will seat differently in relation to the ogive. I have not found a way to measure that relationship. The measuring from base to ogive to get consistent seating is akin to sorting cases by weight in an attempt to get cases that are the same volume.

For what it is worth, I believe one way to counter seating variance is to have a hard jam. Obviously, you need to seat where the barrel shoots the best but a hard jam will tend to neutralize differences in seating depths as the barrel becomes the seater and it will be the same from bullet to bullet. This is just my two cents and probably not even worth that after inflation. Randy J.
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Randy, I know you are right but I haven't had the good fortune of a barrel that will do it in quite a few barrels. I have a setup that will reliably allow me to sort my bullets in to any ogive length spectrum I want. What I have found is the releationship of the varying ogive length will show itself to be the same on the other end. What we are trying to do is to find the same length ogive because of the seater stem problem. The other end of the bullet doesn't matter a whole lot in the loading process, I don't believe anyway.

Something else is where one starts when measuring their OAL's. If one goes by "Square Marks" on the bullet, they are allready in as much a .015" from where one can just barely see land marks when trying to find the "Kiss" point. I would opine that "Square Marks" is sneaking up on a "Hard Jam".

I recently had a running conversation with a well known die manufacturer regarding seating stems and their relationship to loading accurately. The person I conversed with agreed in the end that seating stems should be touching the bullet a lot closer to where the bullet will engage the lands. He said he didn't see them making any changes soon as it would require a whole re-design of their dies. That should be an oportunity for someone. It sure would be nice to load randomly, without sorting.
 
Pete Wass said:
I recently had a running conversation with a well known die manufacturer regarding seating stems and their relationship to loading accurately. The person I conversed with agreed in the end that seating stems should be touching the bullet a lot closer to where the bullet will engage the lands.
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Pete: If you're looking to make this sort of change to your Wilson .30 cal seating dies, just use a Wilson .338 seating stem assy.

Their .30 cal seating stems measure nominally .310 (.309 and change..depending on how I hold my tongue ;)), so you'll have to bore the stem hole out in the seater for the .338 stem diameter, but that's a straight forward job. The .338 stem can be 'fitted' to exactly where you'd like it contact the bullet by several pretty simple methods. You could even touch up the .338 seating stem with the chambering reamer and duplicate the throat exactly..... a 1.5 degree throat, 1.0 degree, etc, etc. Heck, using one of PTG's throating reamers would be stupid-simple.

I've made a gizmo that exactly matches the profile of the nose of my bullets so I can measure the bullets from the base or the nose.

Good shootin'. :) -Al
 
Al, that is a great suggestion and should eliminate a lot of variance from a seating stem. I always try to think outside the box but when you are only dealing with a single caliber and its equipment, some of the simpler things go by the board, at least that will be my excuse from now on. Thanks for the tip. Randy Jarvais
 
I have thought about doing somethign similiar to what Mr. Nyhus and Mr. Wass are talking about. I wanted to make my own "female" seating stem that exactly mimicked the bullet (male) 10 or 7 ogive. I was going to make the mouth of the stem the same diameter as lands. In my mind (which is usually wrong) this would give 100% contact when seating the bullet (less runout) and also give a true (not necessarily more correct) measurement of bullet seating depth.(You could just use the top of the Wilson Seater as your gauge when measuring to the base of the case) After I talked to the local machinest and a very good custom bullet maker, I didn't pursue the idea any further.
 
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Apollo said:
I have thought about doing somethign similiar to what Mr. Nyhus and Mr. Wass are talking about. I wanted to make my own "female" seating stem that exactly mimicked the bullet (male) 10 or 7 ogive. I was going to make the mouth of the stem the same diameter as lands. In my mind (which is usually wrong) this would give 100% contact when seating the bullet (less runout) and also give a true (not necessarily more correct) measurement of bullet seating depth.(You could just use the top of the Wilson Seater as your gauge when measuring to the base of the case) After I talked to the local machinest and a very good custom bullet maker, I didn't pursue the idea any further.
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Or, ya can simply, "grip 'em and jam 'em", and let the barrel do it's work . . . :p RG
 
i have measured as much a .035 thous difference in base to ogive in a major bullet maker's product. they were replaced and, guess what? some are still .035 thous different. i sort into "lots" and shoot them as such. such variations, and possibly lesser amounts, mean the bearing surface of the bullets vary and this will result in varying drag in the bore resulting in varying pressure, velocity and accuracy. i prefer shooting apples OR oranges, not a mix.
 
Al Nyhus said:
Pete: If you're looking to make this sort of change to your Wilson .30 cal seating dies, just use a Wilson .338 seating stem assy.

Their .30 cal seating stems measure nominally .310 (.309 and change..depending on how I hold my tongue ;)), so you'll have to bore the stem hole out in the seater for the .338 stem diameter, but that's a straight forward job. The .338 stem can be 'fitted' to exactly where you'd like it contact the bullet by several pretty simple methods. You could even touch up the .338 seating stem with the chambering reamer and duplicate the throat exactly..... a 1.5 degree throat, 1.0 degree, etc, etc. Heck, using one of PTG's throating reamers would be stupid-simple.

I've made a gizmo that exactly matches the profile of the nose of my bullets so I can measure the bullets from the base or the nose.

Good shootin'. :) -Al
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Al, I gave up on Wilson dies a long time ago. I could not get consistency out of them so went to Forster Micrometer Top Dies so that I could quickly adjust the stem to obtain the correct OAL's. I did buy a .338 stem for the Forster to try it but had second thoughts when I realized I would have to bore the sliding sleeve. Also the angle inside the stem is not correct for ogive of the 30 bullets and that would need to be dealt with. A problem with their stems is the limited length of the seating portion not being long enough to modify much. If they would only make that portion 3/8 ths or 1/2" longer, a man could do some Bidness with it. I do not have faith enough in my machinst disabilities to be able to make one that was concentric all the way around.

I plan to work with the stem at some point and if I can get the fit I want, I will bore the sleeve. After using the threaded dies, I wouldn't go back to the hand press dies. I have a big old Pacific 7 hole turret press and can keep all the dies I need set up all the time, including a bullet puller.

Another thing I have discovered with regard to more consistent seating is the better the insides of necks are cleaned and polished, the easier it is to maintain consistent OAL's; I mean like Looking Glass Bright.
 
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Mike Bryant said:
I measured the ogive to base length with a Davidson ogive checker on 25 68gr bullets that were made at the same time on Rorschach 6mm dies. Subtracting the .750" length of the ogive checker, I came up with a median of .32004" in length from the base of the bullet to where the ogive checker measures. The standard deviation was .00106". Lube was done with 6 gr of lube to a bucket of jackets applied in a Lyman vibrating tumbler. These bullets were made March 7, 2012. I made the same measurement on some 65 gr bullets that were made in June 5, 2003 out of the same dies, different lot of jackets and different die setup. These had a median of .31388" in length and a standard deviation of .001536". These were measured with a Brown & Sharpe dial caliper with the Davidson ogive checker installed on it.

Dial calipers are not very accurate measuring devices and are not 100% reapeatable no matter how good they are. I could measure the same bullet and get different readings within a thousandth or two. I wouldn't put too much faith in measuring bullets with an ogive checker as it's just a relative measurement, but I would keep bullets made at one time separate from bullets made at another time and mark the packaging that they are in with a lot number. I use the date as the lot number on the bullets I make. I make them for myself and not for sale. Making bullets isn't something that I'd want to do for a living for sure.

When you measure bulk bullets made by some of the larger bullet manufacturers and sort them into different ogive lengths, I believe what you are doing is separating the bullets out into lots based upon which die made them. To my understanding, some of the large manufacturers use several different dies making the same or similar ogive and instead of keeping the bullets separated as to which die made them they all go into the same bulk lot. In that case, measuring ogive to base length is just sorting the bullets back into the die that made each bullet.
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I have a lot of faith in my Starrett dial caliper but I agree that ogive length can be a relative thing and isn't measured that easily.
 
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