Loaded rounds
Pete, I shot Palma for a number of years before going into benchrest and I was never aware of this process for seating bullets. I've been considering turning my Palma rifle into an F-Class rifle. Unfortunately when I quit shooting Palma I had about 600 rounds of loaded ammo left. Not sure how to handle that. I've still got fired brass and could run a case and see how it compares to the loaded ammo. I was a barely OK Palma shooter and this just might have contributed to that.
Agree with you on the tools. I've got both the Sinclair tool and the Stoney Point and I've never felt I could get good repeatable results.
How do you use to polish the inside of you necks? I brush mine but that's probably not good enough.
I evolved into using a turret press for loading. I have all the dies I use for the cartridge I am loading in the turret, among them is a cam lock bullet puller that stays there. If your bullets are seated too long, it's easy, just seat them deeper. If they are seated too deep, simply pull them a bit and re-seat. I use Forster Micrometer seating dies, which give very accurate results. If one want .001" more or less, simply turn the top and you get what you ask for. I got away from the hand dies a decade+ ago and pre-load at home; have done it since the second year I have been competing. I shoot only a 30 BR now a day; not very well and not very often. I have roughly 1000 finished cases in boxes of 100, which I rotate as I use them and try to have them annealed after the 6th firing. Annealing the neck and shoulder junction will turn any case into a relatively new one. Your full length die will do all the rest for you after annealing. I use to shoot two rifles in two classes each match, ergo so many cases.
I measure my OAls as I go, adjusting the OAL of each round to the exact length I have determined gives me the most accuracy, using the bullet puller if necessary. The need to do this is the varying length of the ogive slope, which exists in all makes of bullets I have ever found. Our seater stems use the tip of bullets when pushing the bullet during seating. If stems were larger in diameter and touched the bullets closer to where the bullets will engage the lands we would have much better, more consistent results. I had a conversation with an engineer at a die company about this issue. He said they know this situation exists but did not want to do the change necessary to correct it. I suppose inventories of parts, etc. complicates that reality.
I have not set the world on fire shooting over the years BUT I determined to try to give myself the very best chance of winning I could by making as near to perfect ammo as I could. Did it help me? I don't know but when one can see the results of exact ammo on paper in tests, why wouldn't one make ammo as near to perfect as they could. In my view, to do otherwise is to give up a small edge that may make the difference between winning and second place or between breaking records and only winning.
One's calipers with fixtures attached, (stony point) do not lie when it comes to AOL's, when measured correctly.
Keeping necks clean: Very difficult to do if a person uses a large number of cases. One needs to spend a lot of time at it but the more patina and or carbon that builds up in necks, the more erratic the seating becomes and the harder the necks get, the more inconsistent as well. A friend and I have explored this area and we found that the shiner they are, the more consistent and easier the bullets seat. I mean being able to see your face in the inside of case necks. The duller they get , the more resistant to seating.
After annealing, there will be a patina coating present inside necks. it polishes out readily. I haven't been involved in Centerfire shooting much the past two or three years. I fell in love with Rimfire Rifles again after about 15 years and they swept me away from CF. When I was last involved in the polishing process, we found it difficult to find the tools necessary to do it relatively easy but, as I say, I haven't been involved in a couple of years. But there is no doubt about the efficacy of polishing.
Pete
