Boyd Allen
Active member
I went to the range a couple of days ago, with 18 freshly turned cases, that had been mostly fire formed with Bullseye (not sharp, but snug on bolt close), and while I played with seating depth to get what I was looking for, they got their first, with bullet and regular powder firing. In the process, I held my powder charge constant, and when I got to the place that I wanted to be for more serious powder charge work, the load was completely out of tune. There was plenty of paper between all three shots. Anyway, pulling a trick out of my hat, that I learned from Gene Beggs, I figured that what I was looking was maximum aweful, and therefore probably right between nodes ( that he said were about 1.2 grains apart). I upped my powder (133) one number(a little less than .6 gr) on my Harrell's and the next two cut each other, on the level. By that time it was windy, and I had not been shooting with total concentration. The bolt lift was a little tighter than I like, so I decided to go down to the next lower node, and dropped my charge two numbers (a little less than 1.2 grains), adjusted my scope to better center my next two shots, caught a lull in the wind that held for two shots, and put two into a single hole (.050 +-) That finished my first firing, and it was getting really hot, so I put that one up, and did a little tune up on my Viper actioned rifle, before calling it quits. Then I sized the 18 cases from the first rifle, and primed them. This afternoon, just to check my sizing, I ran four of the sized primed cases on my old Sinclair concentricity gauge (3 square bars with bearing balls) and was pleased to see that their runout was no more than .0005 on the ends of the case necks. They had been sized in a Harrell's Vari-Base die, with a very good Wilson bushing (.256) set with a Lee lock ring, in a Harrell's Combo press. I figure that this is about as good as it is going to get, with any die that has a floating bushing. It came together, but I am not quite sure exactly what did what.