Hornady ELD

[Keachie]

Bout to go to work will play with it tonight

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[Dunderi]

I was editing snaps on my laptop when his nibs showed me this.

Please don't let him blow himself up.

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[Seddo]

I load 80gr amax to 2.5" in my bolt gun with Accurate Mags (slightly modified) but in a stock rifle you are limited by the chamber and mag as others have said.

Compressed loads can vary in different brands of brass as they all have a slightly different internal volume. The other factor is how the powder was put in the case. Witha longer drop tube you can get more into the same space as it gets packed in better. If you want to see something cool, fill a case to the top and then sit it intop of your tumber and use your finger to stop the powder comgin out. After a few second if you look the powder will drop a long was down the neck.

[kickinback]

I was editing snaps on my laptop when his nibs showed me this.

Please don't let him blow himself up.

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Always use caution.

Find the lands.

Play with seating depths and powders STARTING AN MINIMUM LOADS.




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[trevort]

Keachie I use the texta method to find seating depth. For accuracy with long pills you want them as close to the lands as possible.
My target rifle
Is soft seated so it hits the lands and gets pushed into the case a little. Bad idea for a repeater or hunting rifle though.

Texta method. Seals a pill which is out to far and try it. Bolt won’t close. Screw die down a little and try again. Keep doing this till the bolt closes with some tension. Now squeeze you pill down around an eighth of a turn. Colour it in with a black texta. Chamber it. A little texta will scrape off as it goes over the ramp into the chamber but you are looking for rifling marks in the texta. If there are none then that is a safe length to be close to the lands but not jam. All my hunting rifles are done that way. I have no idea of measurements. I just lock the setting die to repeat


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[justjeff]

Trev,

Us target people will have a few dummy cases. Each one has a different projectile seated to just touching the lands. Then we can change our loads, but come back to a zero at will. Makes life really easy.

Don't step on any land mines while you are in Saigon land.

Jeff

[lee_enfield223]

I agree most of the time just touching the lands works, and it's the way to go, anyway about 12 months ago I bought some Berger VLD .224 75 grain target projectiles, and was getting great accuracy with them just kissing the lands ,, But needed them to feed into the chamber out of my magazine( the mags an AI so it takes long rounds) but when the rounds were touching the lands the projectile tip bumped the bottom edge of the chamber and failed to feed, but when the round was shortened by 3mm to 60.4mm it now feeds into the chamber with no problem.
My pet load of 24.6grs of 2208 behind the 75gr target Berger was shooting .5 inch groups at 100m and getting 2880FPS ,but with the seating depth changed I was now getting 1 inch groups, BUGGER!! . So decided to try different loads and found that 24.4 was the sweet spot and am getting .722 at 200m. VLDS are a strange beast and I really didn't expect them to shoot off the lands, plus reading lots of storys about Berger VLDs , some people get great accuracy and others only so so. anyway see my 200m target below

20190427_153158.jpg (22.92 KiB) Viewed 5366 times

[bimbo]

The others have said most of it but also look at different powder, 2208 was better suited to heavies in my 223 - also make sure your barrel twist rate is something like 1:8 or 1:9 if its standard 1:12 you will be slinging them all over the place sideways

[Tony Z]

With variations in most any breed of bullet, dies and brass, it is my experience that seating bullets at the point of kissing or touching the lands is the one area fraught with the most failure. The variance of all tools and components will still garner an ogive position of plus or minus a couple of thou either side of any datum you choose. So kissing with one bullet is either two thou jumped or jammed with another, at best. The fact that any medium sized case will start eroding a throat after 50 rounds is enough reason in itself to dismiss such folly.
The seating depth thingy is the last piece of the puzzle in my view. If its slinging them to all points of the compass, seating depth change won't save you.

Choose a bullet and jam the fucker into the lands if the chamber allows. Get as many powders as are suitable for the cartridge bullet weight combination. Fire a couple of groups of each to establish which powder looks the part. Then get a half dozen or more brands or types of the one thing we have zero control over. The primer. It has long been my observation that ignition is the single most destructive or constructive aspect to groups. Especially at ranges beyond point blank.
At some point, you will find the combination that is consistently producing nice round groups. Then and only then use seating depth to fine tune. The point of jamming to begin with is to determine the point where you will never experience a higher pressure with that powder. Any bullet shift from there is and only should be to jump which is going to lower pressure.

As for VLDs. Many years ago when i started fucking with LRBR i cut a number of reamers in different cartridges, like 284, (yes Macca, the Black Pig has a 5 degree throat), 300 and 7mm Redneck and Rednex, 7mm WSM long before it came out using the new 300 WSM brass. So in effect i cut a lot of chambers that had fairly orthodox throats and had some good and bad results. Some time into it i cut reamers with greatly differing throat angles. Some as steep as 10 degrees non inclusive. Two things i found was, accuracy was altered and throat life was altered. By that i mean the steeper angles read sharper on the bullets for longer, negating that all around ring you see on a dying throat or even a new throat on one far too shallow giving you false readings. But more importantly the position of contact of the lands in relation to the bullets ogive gave more consistent results. It gave you tangent ogive contact on a secant ogive bullet. That is the key i believe.
Then later on i discovered that the likes of Dave G was using 5.5 degree throats. I had settled on 5 degrees for VLDs in 7mm, 162 Amaxes to be exact, he had settled on 5.5 for his 30 cal i believe. Around the same time Rogers was killing it with his Redneck. Shehane in the US was SOTY way back with his 300 AI and 210 Bergers. More recently Jacko has been killing it with his SAUM and 180 Bergers. His gunsmith as told to me by Jacko has been building some very successful FClass rifles. The common theme, 5 degree throats and secant VLDs in all of the above. Except for Rogers who used the sharp pointed BIBs.
If you do the math, as Dave and i have, 3.5 degrees or shallower just don't cut it for most secant ogive VLDs. It is hit and miss. Literally. And the forums are full of it everywhere all over the world. How do i get my Bergers or Amax or ??? to shoot? It is pretty common knowledge now. Steeper throat angle and jam the fucker. Usually. Gets the stall, the burn and then the accuracy.
If you cannot get a secant ogive VLD to work in your throat and it is 3.5 degrees or less, inclusive, swap to a dual ogive, tangent and secant nose like the new Sierras or the good old tangent ogive bullets. Or continue with the frustration and a worn out barrel.

As a last point. Jamming bullets. Never jam a bullet in a regular tensioned neck so far into the lands to the point where the jam changes overall length.It may have been the rage in SR BR once, but in long range with VLDs, it is a no go in my experience. Far too much variation dependant on neck tension consistency.

[macca]

As for VLDs. Many years ago when i started fucking with LRBR i cut a number of reamers in different cartridges, like 284, (yes Macca, the Black Pig has a 5 degree throat), 300 and 7mm Redneck and Rednex, 7mm WSM long before it came out using the new 300 WSM brass.

You know I still screw that Tobler back in and go out and shoot a 1/2 MOA or better at five or six hundred. Its got 2500 plus rounds through it.
As for the reloading advice it works for me as well.
cheers