Popular Bullets

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Twud

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I'm not a benchrest shooter but I'm trying to get the most out of of a new
6MM BR varminter I had built.
Looking at the big picture, what would you say the most popular brand of bullet used on the benchrest circuit is?
Mark
 
So long as you use a bullet from one of the advertisers on benchrest central I doubt you can find a bad bullet. Of course, some will shoot better in your barrel than others but this is a trial and error procedure...not just picking a 'winner' from the get-go. Barrels are like people, they have different 'appetites'. For instance, if you feed me liver you ain't gonna get much out of me except vomit but I do fairly well on a diet of lobster or rib eyes.
 
MColeman said:
So long as you use a bullet from one of the advertisers on benchrest central I doubt you can find a bad bullet. Of course, some will shoot better in your barrel than others but this is a trial and error procedure...not just picking a 'winner' from the get-go. Barrels are like people, they have different 'appetites'. For instance, if you feed me liver you ain't gonna get much out of me except vomit but I do fairly well on a diet of lobster or rib eyes.
Click to expand...

Lobster and Rib Eyes? HOW DO YOU DO IT MICKEY? You poor soul:D
 
1-12tw is not a good twist for normal BR bullets (60-68grs). More than likely you'll have to stay at minimun of 70grs. If you shooting varmits, try Bergers varmit bullets, and if you want to cut paper, try the same in match. I'd probably start with the 75gr. Try some V-max's also, they will suprise you on how well they shoot. Now some bullet makers will make you a bullet and back out the point die a little to give you a larger hollow point and better expansion. Ed Watson used to do this for me. I've got a little less than 1000 of his 65gr bullets left that were set up this way.

Hovis
 
75 Grain VMaxs shoot about .4 68 grain Hammonds shoot .216 this is without any load development. 33 Gr. of Varget and seat them .010" off the lands.
My problem is that I can't get bullets to seat to a consistent depth. I'm using Redding Competition Micrometer dies and my length at the ogive is varying as much as .008".
Redding and Hornady both say it's due to variations in the bullet where the seater comes in contact with it.
 
If your measuring the ogive then hornday and redding don't know what there talking about. The bullet tip must be bottoming out in your stem. Check some after seating and look to see if you have a ring on the bullet. There should be, if not, it's bottoming. The only time I ever even came close to that was measuring from base to bullet tip or VLD's that were bottoming.

Also, you can color the bullet with marker to make it easier to see where it's contacting.

Hovis
 
Resolution

How do I resolve this problem? Always had good luck with Redding dies.
Mark
 
First, figure out if it is the problem (bottoming out). If it is, have the center of the seater stem drilled deaper, be careful of the diameter, you want the hole to be as small as necessary to make it work. You can do it on a mill, drill press (carefully) or lathe.

Hovis
 
I doubt the stem is the problem - -

I have been measuring bullets for a couple of years now with a comparitor; the ones with the Granite base and fixtures, one on the indicator tip and one that holds the bullet and slides around on the granite base.

It is not all that un-common to find hand made bullets that will not give consistent seating depths, in fact, it pretty much the norm. Once sorted, they all shoot just fine and the sorting makes it very easy to load with consistent deating depths.

Occasionally, one finds a lot that are within a couple of thousants but that is UNUSUAL. Usually, most of the bullets will be within a couple of thou but the real problem is a quanity of them will be off by a lot. You wonder why that one went way over there and you didn't see it in the flags? Guess what, the flags didn't lie, the seating depth was too far off to be accurate.

I bought a box of bullets recently that were .021 different from one side of the dial to the other. the biggest number of them were .001 different BUT about half of them are the different ones and would KILL ones day.

I was recently given a box of 150 bullets that were made in 1998. I measured them and they were within .001, about 2/3- 1/3. The best I have ever seen was a box of samples sent to me ( 100 ) that were ALL exactly the same. NOW, if we could get that all the time, we could load randomly without any concerns at all. But ALAS - - -!

A word of caution; if one's necks aren't uniform, seatig depth will be affected by differing neck tension. One must be vigilent.
 
Pete,
Are you talking about bearing surface length or base to ogive of a bullet? OAL cartriage length of loaded rounds should not vary. I measure over 100+ loaded rounds just a week ago and found 2 that varied .0005 OAL. Also, I've been varying neck tension some lately and found it has nothing to do with OAL unless it's a compressed load. I have never found hand made bullets to cause a variation in OAL in a loaded length ever. The only way it could happen is do to poor bullet making varying the point up until the ogive variation would cause the stem to grip the bullet in different places. If bullet seating depth varied over .002, we couldn't shoot a group in the ones.

I think I must be misunderstanding what you are describing. We must be on two different sheets of paper.

Hovis
 
I think it depends where one measures

The reading I get is on the bullet close to where it is going to touch the lands. This is where I measure my OAL's becaues it is the only thing that matters. I know from emails from other folks who do what I do that I am not way out in left field here. The long distance folks and other disciplines use the same method I use to sort bullets. All of them I have conversed with find exactly the same thing I do.

The reason I started measuring is because I knew from testing .002 will cause groups to open up. As I said, some lots of bullets are better than others and some are dern close to being the same and then there is the usual; lots with a few that are wildly out of spec. Those are the ones that will ruin one's day. I had some recently where the ogive should touch the lands gave no reading at all on the indicator they was so grossly undersized; 9 out of a lot of 800. 9 shots that would have been way out there if I had loaded @ random. If you got 100 that were that good loading @ random you are fortunate to have a good lot of bullets.

I find it like throwing charges, if one is satisfied to acept the charges that are way over and way under and willing to accept the bullets that are way off sometimes they must enjoy the TRIP more than the competition. -:)

Pete
 
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TWUD, check out 6mmbr.com. They will answer all your questions regarding 6br,target,varmint or whatever....chris
 
Pete,
I use a tool that was made with a throating reamer like my chamber reamer. I just don't find the variations and I have loaded with Barts, Genters, Hott's, Knights this year. I check a lot of loaded rounds. Now, measuring VLD's, that's a whole other story and I wouldn't even consider being competitive without sorting normally. But that's like dropping charges, wouldn't do it for long range, but I find no need to weigh for short range (I don't use 133 typically either).

Do you shoot primairly long or short range? Oh, can you post or send me a pick of your measuring device. I don't know if I've seen one or not. I'm always up to a better measuring unit.

If you want, I'd be glad to send a few cases and bullets to you to check and we could compare results. I find our discussion interesting. Have a nice weekend

Hovis
 
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Man Chris I've got that site memorized. I guess what I'm asking, is there a problem with my die, and is there a bullet brand that has a reputation for consistency.
I'm not taking this to the benchrest level, just wanna' pop groundhogs at 350 yards, reliably.
Mark
 
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