Bolt stick

To clarify, the "last PDR grove" means on the ogive end of the bullet, not the boat tail end. Should be seating deeper if you're way out at 0.030 off the lands.

But I don't know what the freebore is like on a 28 Nosler off the top of my head, if it's short you might be pretty deep already. I'm used to the 300 RUM where it's got about a mile and half of jump usually.

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Do you guys not do seating depth at all with solids? I am going to play with some here and was recently pondering seating depth. some of the ones I have use a drive band so just seat to that and be done?
 
Do you guys not do seating depth at all with solids? I am going to play with some here and was recently pondering seating depth. some of the ones I have use a drive band so just seat to that and be done?
On my 26 nosler I did but loaded Barnes lrx. About .030 they really tightened up. But the claim is that it does not make much difference with the hammers
 
Do you guys not do seating depth at all with solids? I am going to play with some here and was recently pondering seating depth. some of the ones I have use a drive band so just seat to that and be done?
I do. In my experience with hammers which is only a two rifle sample much less than others is that it makes a difference but there is a really wide node that they shoot well. Much wider than anything else I have tried to date.
 
The grove I am talking about is closest to the tip of the bullet
What does one of your loaded rounds look like? These are 6.5CMs with 85 HHs, I ran out of stem adjustment and need to reset the entire seating die lower to get the last little bit on the one on the left.

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Do you guys not do seating depth at all with solids?
Never needed to with Hammers, the last PDR groove has always worked. Powder has not always worked, but I shot multiple powders at the same seating length and one load shot into one ragged hole at 100 yards on the first try, guess which one I'm going with 🤣 I'm also shooting Hammers into the .5s and .6s with the goal of hitting an 8" kill zone at 600 yards or less. I've never felt the need to spend the time tightening them up for my specific usage. That pretty much guarantees the load is not perfect, just good enough.

FWIW 0.020" off as a starting point has shot plenty of groups in the .3s and .4s for me in match rifles with cup and core bullets. I'm not over here trying to shrink 2" groups to under an inch with seating depth tuning, the bullet/powder combo needs to at least be capable of under an inch on it's own in the ballpark of acceptable velocity. If I shoot a 2" group at 100 yards a component is getting changed, not the tune.
 
One on right is loaded left is my measured to lands. Also just to see, I seated a bullet slowly until I was at the top of the "last band". And it measured to ogive 3.75. My ogive measure to lands is 3.727. I also took the expansion ball out of my full length die and measured a sized brass with out ball and compared it to a loaded round, and a sized neck with the ball. Vertically no difference from loaded to sized with ball maybe 2/3 of a thousandths. .007 difference with no expansion ball.
 

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You may need to switch to a lighter bullet to get away from the lands and I don't understand what you are saying in regards to you F/L die measurements
Width of my neck. Compared to bullet seated and with and without the ball expander no bullet seated
 
Well no wonder you're pressuring out early, you're losing a ton of case capacity versus guys who have chambers throated to seat bullets further out of the case.

What is the BTO of one of the bullets, and what is the measurement from the base of the boat tail to the last PDR groove? If the difference between those is round about/more than .188" then this is the wrong bullet for the 28 Noser SAAMI freebore.

If you chamber is that short you need either a shorter/lighter bullet, or the Absolute Hammer where the first PDR band is the major diameter. Who made the rifle?
 
Well I'm thinking that's it these rifles have tight chambers. Maybe to tight. I need to take the measurements again on chamber and bullets and check.
 
One on right is loaded left is my measured to lands. Also just to see, I seated a bullet slowly until I was at the top of the "last band". And it measured to ogive 3.75. My ogive measure to lands is 3.727. I also took the expansion ball out of my full length die and measured a sized brass with out ball and compared it to a loaded round, and a sized neck with the ball. Vertically no difference from loaded to sized with ball maybe 2/3 of a thousandths. .007 difference with no expansion ball.
The 3.727 measurement doesn't sound right. How are you getting that measurement? I would take a new piece of brass and seat a bullet at the measurement I sent you yesterday, chamber it, and see if you get stiff bolt closure.
 
The 3.727 measurement doesn't sound right. How are you getting that measurement? I would take a new piece of brass and seat a bullet at the measurement I sent you yesterday, chamber it, and see if you get stiff bolt closure.
I'll re measure it. I used the hornady tool to measure and took the measurements BTO
 

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