Hornady ELD-X Official Thread
- Thread starter Jud96
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That's encouraging. Those are much better tolerances than I have seen from the 208 Amax. I was hoping Hornady had tightened things up some...I have some Amaxes sorted right now and bearing lengths were .6140 to .6175 from the same lot of 100 bullets!
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- Aug 30, 2006
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I posted those numbers earlier in one of these bullet threads. They came from Hornady.
I was actually asking NW Hunter but info from anyone is good. I have more measuring tools than most reloaders and I don't have anything that will accurately measure a bearing surface length. I asked because I'm doubting the measurements you guys are getting is an accurate length of the bearing surface.
Understood. I doubt we can measure to the accuracy the manufacturer does, but I think we are within +/- a couple .001 at least. So the numbers are relevant and not totally inaccurate. This is the way it is with a lot of measurement tools we have normal access to for reloading. I doubt if NW Hunters tools and mine would measure the bearing surfaces exactly the same, but I would suspect they would be within .003/.004 of each other. But when we use the same tool to measure several different bearing surfaces any variance in the bearing surfaces becomes evident.
I know my numbers are accurate relevant to each other and the .003 to .004 differences I see in Hornady Amax bullet bearing surfaces is real. I sort most all of my bullets for long range and these bearing surface differences are pretty typical for what I see with Hornady. I have sorted well over a thousand Amaxes from different lots and two different calibers. I have never found this much difference from Berger. From Berger I will see more like a few .001 and a couple .002 from a box of 100.
The number NW Hunter stated was .061" longer than what Hornady stated. The OAL was only .007" longer than what Hornady stated.
I suspected he was measuring to a diameter on the bullet nose that was smaller than the bearing surface and that was where the extra 1/16" of length was coming from.
Michael Eichele
Well-Known Member
Double Hornady comparators don't give accurate bearing surface lengths. I have 2 and one diameter is .300 and the other is .298". This will prevent you from getting to the bearing surface junctions at both the nose and boat tail. There is much less actual bearing surface than those tools will measure. It's not as simple as deducting the .008" and .010" from the tools either. You'd have to know the nose radius and boat tail angle to perform the math. Maybe Hornady offers that info?
Totally disagree. You are trying to make something more complicated than it is. Read my previous post. And they don't offer that info because there is no need to.
The boat tail angle is 8° so if you used a .298" diameter tool there you would be adding about .035" to the bearing surface length. I don't know what the nose radius is.
NW Hunter
Well-Known Member
Sorry guys, I just got back on.
Yes, I did use a set of Hornady double comparators.
I just measured the diameters and they both are .297".
Good catch on my figures.
Yes, I did use a set of Hornady double comparators.
I just measured the diameters and they both are .297".
Good catch on my figures.
Oops sorry. I agree. Understand what you are saying now. I was just talking about using the comparators to reference one bullets bearing length to anothers in the same lot of bullets. I believe they work well for this. They would not work to obtain an absolute measurement of a particular bullet's bearing surface. I will go away now.....
