Question on pointing 6.5 140 VLD

D

dave_mustaine

Guest
I just got the Whidden die to try pointing 140 Berger vld's. I'm just wondering how you guys are going as far as the adjustment on the die? I thought I was seeing a slight bulge at the base of the point when I went to .040" so I backed it off to .030 and loaded them up to try. Does this sound ballpark for the 140 vld as far as the adjustment on the micrometer seating part of the die? Thanks.
 
Dave,

Don't know where you got to your start point from, but a Whidden die is just like a seating die. You back of the adjustments until it doesn't touch the bullet, then increment it in until until you close up the point just enough. I trim the meplat first, then close it up no more than needed to leave4 a discernible pinhole inside the jacket tip.

When I said adjustments, there are two:

The coarse adjustment on the rod with the locknut in the centre of the die to move things quickly or a lot. Use this one maybe to get the die off the bullet.
The fine adjustment you can get by moving thousandth by thousandth on the micrometer. This is the one you use to close the tip precisely.

The die doesn't come zeroed ready for the bullet of your choice.

John
 
All I'm asking is how much you are adjusting the die from the point of intial contact. The micrometer top is marked in .001 increments. I would think you would want to know how much you are adjusting the die for meplat closer so you could get repeatable results when getting into a different bullet lot#. For example, from the point my die just touches the meplat, I'm then adjusting the die down .030. Just trying to find out if this is roughly what others are doing for this bullet or if I'm going to far. Thanks.
 
You need to sort by o.a.l in whatever increments you're comfortable with, say .003. You can't set the die up to point a bullet whose o.a.l. is 1.475 and expect to get the same results on the bullet tip if the next bullet is longer or shorter. You can have bullet lengths in a specific lot vary enough to make a difference when pointing. The next thing is to back the gross adjustment of the die off completely, run a bullet up in there, handle all the way down. Then adjust the gross adj. till you feel resistance and lock it in place next, take the bullet out of the die and look at it under a loope 10x or magnifying glass then place the bullet back in the die and drop the handle slowly, you should feel little or know resistance at this point. Lift the handle and turn the fine adj. .005, slowly drop the handle, once at the bottom lift the handle and remove to inspect the bullet again with the glass. Continue until satisfied! Remember "less is more" no bulges, that could suggest your separating the jacket from the core at the top which is bad!!! One side note you may not see an advantage to pointing unless your shooting at least 500 yards and I don't know if pointing makes them group better however it does reduce the moa need to reach a far away target.
Good luck
 
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Shot at 1060 yds today with the pointed bullets. Took about .4 mils less elevation than the idendtical loads with non pointed, so I'd say its working. This was in two different rifles that shoot the 140 vld to the same velocity of 2850. I think I will just stick to bump the point at .030 on the micrometer top until I get into a diffent lot of bullets and things change a little.
 
Shot at 1060 yds today with the pointed bullets. Took about .4 mils less elevation than the idendtical loads with non pointed, so I'd say its working. This was in two different rifles that shoot the 140 vld to the same velocity of 2850. I think I will just stick to bump the point at .030 on the micrometer top until I get into a diffent lot of bullets and things change a little.

Excellent!
 
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