Beginner help with zeroing and seating/jump

[bast0573]

Well basicly im on board with Roy. No special tools needed for obtaining a good seating depth. I started loading over 60 years ago when there werent any special tools.
Simply seat a bullet long then finish seating it by chambering it in the gun. Best to use an old neck split case or make a split with your dremel. I then turn the die stem to seat that bullet legnth plus about 1 turn more. if you use the magazine, it will dictate legnth. Your groups will determine what is best depth for that gun. Save the finished dummy round for future die settings. I dont think working up a load for any
good gun is much different personaly. Dont be expecting the gun to like the powder
and bullets you think it should. The 338 Lapua is a very popular cartridge and lots of good info is available for it. As a rule there will be some sacrifices as to the velocity
or accuracy youd like. The best velocity isnt always the best as for accuracy.
And it isnt usually the best as for case life. These things you need to find out for yourself by your own experiences. Your apt to hear about great velocity numbers,
but little will be said as for the cost by way of case life.

Thank you. I've never thought about doing it that way.... Probably because I didn't really understand it to begin with. I'm not to the point of measuring velocity yet... I'm still trying to zero this **** thing. I have found a lot of info about the lapua, but 99% of what I read is different info and mostly pertains to individuals opinions. I will keep going with this stuff and keep posting what's happening with hopes you guys can hopefully help!

 

[FEENIX]

Thank you very much!! That helped make everything make sense!! Now I have another question from getting that answered. He said once he measured both to the bolt and to the bullet, he said to drop about .020" and start there. Now would you want to go longer or shorter from there?

You're welcome! You have to experiment on seating depth and find out the sweet spot for your particular rifle ... and each bullet design and powder combination is different, i.e. the accuracy load for my SAKO M995 .300 Win Mag; the CBTO for 190 Berger VLD (75 H4831SC at 3043 FPS of MV) is .015' off the lands and the 208 Hornady A-Max (73 IMR 7828SSC at 2793 FPS of MV) is .060" off the lands.

Good luck!

 

[bast0573]

Money, money, everyone wants to spend money.

Heck, simply turn your hat around backwards, put on some camo and go country. That is common sense....

Take resized case and a dremel tool and hook up the cut off blade.

Put the case in a vise firmly but don't crush it. Fire up the dremel and cut 2 slots from mouth to shoulder 180 degrees apart.

You could use a hack saw but my attempts with one were very poor.

Next, smooth the edges.

Then, slip the bullet of interest about half way down the neck and wiggle it around to loosen the neck tension.

The idea is to hand seat it really long then chamber it. The throat will seat the bullet barely into the rifling. If the neck tension is too tight the bullet will stick in the bore. If so, drop a smaller caliber bullet down the barrel and knock it loose. A short brass rod, of appropriate diameter, works also.

So far no money spent.

Ok here comes the money part.

You'll need a decent caliper. A digital one for around 30 bucks is useable.

Being as the idea is to measure the overall cartridge length you'll need a tool for that.

Those suggested are fine.

I use a Sinclair Nut which is a bit clumsy but very handy with no set up time. If using it remember to zero the caliper on the nut before measuring the cartridge or you'll be around an inch long in numbers.

You'll soon find that bullets from different manufacturers are quite different when measuring this.

The Sinclair Nut is also convenient for measuring seating depth adjustments.

Between the Nut and the Grip N Pull setting seating depth is darn near fun.

Don't worry about zeroing at any specific distance until you get it grouping, anywhere on the target.

Then zero it at the longest available distance that you can shoot, within reason, then work backwards to validate drops turns out to be way better, for me at least, than getting as close to spot on at 100, 200 or 300 then going long to validate drops/bc etc. Learned that from a Kirby Allen post not very long ago. Can't seem to find it at the moment.



HTH

Thank you for all of your input and advice. I do have a very good micrometer (caliper) from working in a glass factory and having to be within +/- .010 tolerances. So, money saved there. I'm not having any luck with grouping at all. One shot will be 2 foot high and the next 3 foot low and the following will be perfect height and off to the left 10 feet. There's absolutely no consistency. Not to toot my own horn, but I was in the military and a very great shot. With 6 rounds I hit a half dollar size target with 6 rounds at 300 meters. To be fair, that was an m4 (.223) and this is my first .338... So idk if this is me or not. I'm really hoping its something stupid that I've done wrong and not my shooting lol

Now why would you want to start at 300 yards and move down to 100? I would think you'd want to get on paper closer and then move out?? I'm not meaning that in an ignorant way... I'm genuinely asking. Thank you for all your help!

 

[inkballedtarget]

Thank you Roy! That was very helpful! Worked like a charm!

 

[bast0573]

Update and additional questions.

Question: I did the COAL without any special coal tools, just a push rod and calipers. The COAL seemed like it was a little long, but wanted to know what you guys thought. The COAL was 3.790". The video posted said to take off .020 off of that number and that should give a good starting point for accuracy. Does my COAL sound correct? Does my starting COAL of 3.770" sound correct?

Update: I was looking through my scope today and playing with it because I saw what another one (exact same brand and model) looked like and was completely lost why mine looked like complete crap, so I decided to call Vortex and ask their expertise. Let me stop right there and say, they were the nicest and most intelligent/knowledgeable people I've ever talked to in customer service. I told them how I had a lot of shadows and half moons in my scope that got worse the higher magnification, wasn't clear, reticle moving like crazy from the smallest movement of my eye, maxed out elevation trying to bore sight it, next to no movement (except About half way through the corrections) when adjusting elevation and wind age, and how my shots are all over the place and how I can't get a group. Within 5 seconds of me ending my list, he told me I over tightened my rings. I did the mirror trick like he said, set the magnification to highest possible, and re mounted the scope and rings (this time to the proper torque) and everything looks a million times better. No movement, no shadows, crystal clear sights, no movement in reticle a when I move my head, and reticle a moving freely when making corrections. So, I think I have the grouping problem solved but won't know for sure until this weekend when I take her out.

Thank you everyone for helping and anyone that can give some advice about my COAL would still be greatly appreciated. I thought I was going to get a lot of crap from people posting about these problems but I'm very surprised and grateful I didn't get anyone calling me an idiot. Thank you all!

 

[yobuck]

Update and additional questions.

Question: I did the COAL without any special coal tools, just a push rod and calipers. The COAL seemed like it was a little long, but wanted to know what you guys thought. The COAL was 3.790". The video posted said to take off .020 off of that number and that should give a good starting point for accuracy. Does my COAL sound correct? Does my starting COAL of 3.770" sound correct?

Update: I was looking through my scope today and playing with it because I saw what another one (exact same brand and model) looked like and was completely lost why mine looked like complete crap, so I decided to call Vortex and ask their expertise. Let me stop right there and say, they were the nicest and most intelligent/knowledgeable people I've ever talked to in customer service. I told them how I had a lot of shadows and half moons in my scope that got worse the higher magnification, wasn't clear, reticle moving like crazy from the smallest movement of my eye, maxed out elevation trying to bore sight it, next to no movement (except About half way through the corrections) when adjusting elevation and wind age, and how my shots are all over the place and how I can't get a group. Within 5 seconds of me ending my list, he told me I over tightened my rings. I did the mirror trick like he said, set the magnification to highest possible, and re mounted the scope and rings (this time to the proper torque) and everything looks a million times better. No movement, no shadows, crystal clear sights, no movement in reticle a when I move my head, and reticle a moving freely when making corrections. So, I think I have the grouping problem solved but won't know for sure until this weekend when I take her out.

Thank you everyone for helping and anyone that can give some advice about my COAL would still be greatly appreciated. I thought I was going to get a lot of crap from people posting about these problems but I'm very surprised and grateful I didn't get anyone calling me an idiot. Thank you all!

Yes and he told you no more than 15 inch pounds of torque right? Well 15 inch pounds just might not keep the scope from slipping based on what ive found.
I had to go to 25 inch pounds on my sons 338x378. Just look in the scope and see if the reticle moves. They could also make the tube a little thicker so we dont need
torque drivers.

 

[bast0573]

Yes and he told you no more than 15 inch pounds of torque right? Well 15 inch pounds just might not keep the scope from slipping based on what ive found.
I had to go to 25 inch pounds on my sons 338x378. Just look in the scope and see if the reticle moves. They could also make the tube a little thicker so we dont need
torque drivers.

He told me no more than 18 inch pounds. He said 15-18 was optimal. I got it at 18 and my scope is not moving. I have the vortex rings and they seem to be great! I thought 15-18 was quite low, especially for a 338, but its holding perfectly.

 

[royinidaho]

Bast, someone's blowin' smoke up your pipes.....

On my 338 RUM shooting 300 Bergers @ 2735 I cranked on the torque head wrench on the ring bolts on Leupold rings harden enough to get a half twist in the torques head. Looks more like a screw than a wrench.

That was what it took to keep the scope from slipping, because of the brake I suppose. :roll eyes:

If you are shooting 3 foot by 4 foot groups it ain't your loads that are the problem.

Either you're flinching like your sitting on Tannerite or you gun is broke in some way.

If you're north of Pgh search on here for jmason. He's in Wampum. Get together with him or someone w/some experience (not a western PA "deer hunter" or shade tree 'canic. There's gotta be someone on your side of the state with the right kind of knowledge.

Do a search on Eric of Berger fame's discussion on seating Berger bullets. It works for other bullets also, some times.

I was having similar problems (excessive group size) in a custom gun. Turns out after tearing it completely down, twice, the problem was the dummy doing the reloading. The idiot completely neglected to remember to check case length. When ya load hot, even with steep shoulder angles, they stretch.

Bad groups all the time and excessive high pressures once in awhile finally woke me up. Some cases were 0.01 too long. The case was grabbing the bullet upon firing. Velocity jumped as much as 250 FPS and bolt lift and extraction was done with a plastic hammer.

She's now back to her 0.5 MOA or less. And I only used close to 80 rounds of powder bullets and barrel life. I think I'll go back on my meds.....

Usually I'm not so dumb, but there are times....

 

[bast0573]

Bast, someone's blowin' smoke up your pipes.....

On my 338 RUM shooting 300 Bergers @ 2735 I cranked on the torque head wrench on the ring bolts on Leupold rings harden enough to get a half twist in the torques head. Looks more like a screw than a wrench.

That was what it took to keep the scope from slipping, because of the brake I suppose. :roll eyes:

If you are shooting 3 foot by 4 foot groups it ain't your loads that are the problem.

Either you're flinching like your sitting on Tannerite or you gun is broke in some way.

If you're north of Pgh search on here for jmason. He's in Wampum. Get together with him or someone w/some experience (not a western PA "deer hunter" or shade tree 'canic. There's gotta be someone on your side of the state with the right kind of knowledge.

Do a search on Eric of Berger fame's discussion on seating Berger bullets. It works for other bullets also, some times.

I was having similar problems (excessive group size) in a custom gun. Turns out after tearing it completely down, twice, the problem was the dummy doing the reloading. The idiot completely neglected to remember to check case length. When ya load hot, even with steep shoulder angles, they stretch.

Bad groups all the time and excessive high pressures once in awhile finally woke me up. Some cases were 0.01 too long. The case was grabbing the bullet upon firing. Velocity jumped as much as 250 FPS and bolt lift and extraction was done with a plastic hammer.

She's now back to her 0.5 MOA or less. And I only used close to 80 rounds of powder bullets and barrel life. I think I'll go back on my meds.....

Usually I'm not so dumb, but there are times....

I'll look him up because wampum is only about 30 minutes from me. I torqued my scope down to 18 inch pounds and it fixed everything (sight wise) but I have to take it out and see if I can get it to group. The groups were not me seeing that 3 other people could not get it to group either. I'm going to try and get out there shooting this weekend to try and group and zero my rifle.