AusVarmint

Hi guys,

as some may know I have purchased a new reloading kit and I am about to get into it. I have also purchased powder, projectiles, primers and I have a pair of calipers.

I only have a factory rifle and use it on varmint only.

The question i need to know is that do i need a hornady oal guage and that funny attachment for my calipers to start working out land's distance or just start getting the hang of reloading first than jumping the gate?

cheers
al

In a hunting rifle it's far more important that they fit and feed from the mag reliably rather than be chasing the lands.
Sure, seating depth can have an impact on accuracy but it's not the be all and end all of a good hunting load.

Seat em out too far and have one wedge itself in the throat and your day is over... unless of course you have a cleaning rod and some way of getting all that spilt powder out of the action.

thanks wiz

Alex as Wiz said mate just take care with all the steps for a start.And from what I have seen factory rifles run out of magazine length well before you will find the lands.I believe this is so you do not jam your projies and have the consquent dramas.
There are various different ways of finding your seating depth and the Hornady OAL tool is IMO a very easy way to do it.

I (mostly) load a pill into an unprimed sized case and leave it way long then color the pill bearing surface with a black texta and gently try to chamber it.
idea being it will be too long and wont chamber, then turn the die down bit by bit until it chambers (I recolour it each time) and comes out without the rifling marks scraped into the ink. I know then that that length is safe to go and devolop loads using that case length. If it was a hunting rifle I would probably turn the die down a fifth or quarter of a turn as if the previous safe length is very close, variances in a batch of projectiles can mean one does make contact with the lands occasionally.

Biggest problem with that can be when the target disappears before you fire and you unload to find the pill in the throat, the empty case in your hand and powder through your action . Its happened a couple of times and the rifle is out of action until your home and can clean the powder out of the locking lugs (always good to have a couple of rifles in the ute )

Thanks missed and trev.

Might just keep to the recommended oal sixe for my cal. Will probably get that hornady gauge in the future and for now just concentrate on my powder charges and pill sizes.

Out of curiosity, how much accuracy can you gain by increasing or decreasing the distance between the ogive and the lands?

it all depends, some loads/calibres/rifles are very sensitive and some dont care. If you dont have attachments for your caliper to measure from the ogive of your pill then there isnt any point comparing the end to end length of your reload to a factory load. If you dont want to buy those the use my texta method and redo it each time you change thetype of pill.

Cheers

Alex, plenty of people get by without an OAL tool. It's main use is for when you want to seat bullets very close or just touching the lands. If you want to get shooting quickly without too much fiddling, just load to the factory OAL. You can fine tune from there as you get familiar with the process

trevort wrote:Biggest problem with that can be when the target disappears before you fire and you unload to find the pill in the throat, the empty case in your hand and powder through your action .

I still have first dibs on that Rifle Trev


Dr G

I reckon you might as well seat for the maximum length that will fit your mag. If it doesn't fit the mag I don't want it.

I tried a method i found on youtube where you partly neck size a case. Just enough to keep the bullet in the case neck and then gently chamber it. theory being that the bullet would hit the lands and push it into the case. Once the case is fully chambered gently eject it and measure the OAL. Back it off a little and it should be ok. Thing is I got the thinking what was to say the bullet would not grab on the lands for a bit before letting go giving you a false reading. Ended up going with factory length and then Mag length and back off a little and left it at that.

Plowboy wrote:I tried a method i found on youtube where you partly neck size a case. Just enough to keep the bullet in the case neck and then gently chamber it. theory being that the bullet would hit the lands and push it into the case. Once the case is fully chambered gently eject it and measure the OAL. Back it off a little and it should be ok. Thing is I got the thinking what was to say the bullet would not grab on the lands for a bit before letting go giving you a false reading. Ended up going with factory length and then Mag length and back off a little and left it at that.

Well I tried this method the other night with my 22-250 and a 55gr plug and the projectile fell out before it reached the lands

It might be a great way of increasing accuracy but not in my case. They say a factory crimp is all thats needed to produce the same effect. Don't really know how but its all I can do.

Yeah that's too loose mate, you want it to be able to stay in the neck when the case is held vertical. OR you had a bullet get stuck in the lands which I was worried about. Anyhow I reckon that for a varminting rifle, or any rifle used to shoot bleeding targets, it's more important for a reliable feeding action and that means that a magazine length should be max size. I think that most rifles out of the factory would have the safety margin of a magazine being shorter than the lenth of max OAL of the rifle. If your rifle is an un modified factory rifle I would say magazine length would be safe.

What I meant to say was the max OAL of the chamber was way more than a 55gr projectile could reach. I just pushed the projectile until it went pink and fell out and was still miles from the lands. A 70gr might reach but its too big for a 22-250.

A factory crimp is supposed to give the same pressure results as a projectile that a few thou off the lands but I cant see how. Thats a massive jump

Ah OK I get ya! Yeah I found the lands on the tikka and it's way too long for my mag I tried another way by getting the same slightly sized case and drilling out the primer pocket. and then using wire to push the bullet out till it hit the lands. in my rifle 55s just hit it but they have to be flat based for the neck to have any purchase.