Bang4theBuck
Well-Known Member
As the title suggests, there is something new to be learned all the time with reloading, and this week was no different. I picked up a couple of rifles and some other goodies at the local gun club swap meet, and as would be the norm for me, I was anxious to put scope on the rifles and see what they were capable of. The two rifles were very different from one another. One was a Browning A-bolt Medallion in 30-06, and the other was a custom action with aftermarket barrel and trigger in 6MM Dasher.
I've got quite a bit of experience with the 6mm Dasher and already had good dies for it, so it was no surprise that it shot lights out (.114" @100 yds) with my first loading.
The Browning on the other hand did not shoot all that well (1.5" groups at 100). I wasn't too tore up about it at the time, as it was just a generic load with a small range of powder charges. Factory brass, completely prepped, including annealing. I reached pressure in my first round of reloads, and was not able to shoot 2 of the highest charges. I brought them home to be disassembled.
Another item I picked up at the show was a concentricity gauge with a dial on it. For giggles, I have been taking random samplings of my brass after it has been through the dies, looking at runout on the necks. I have also checked runout at the ogive, and near the tip of the bullet. In many cases, the runout is really good, and ironically, these are the rifles/loads that produce excellent repeatable accuracy.
Last night, I just happened to check those 30-06 rounds. Both the fired ones and the unfired ones. The fired cases had very good runout at the necks (.001 to .0015") however, the unfired rounds had HUGE runout. I'm talking like .015" or more in some cases. The runout near the bullet tip was almost .030" in some cases.
I deducted from these checks that the ammo I loaded was not concentric, but the chamber was concentric, so the process of firing was 'correcting' the error that the die was imparting on the brass......CRAZY!!!!! I had two different sets of (albeit cheap) dies, and both imparted runout as compared to a newly fired cases.
I'm now a few fathoms down a rabbit hole going through the ammo and fired cases from the 40+ different cartridges that I load for. I am feeling some new dies in my future.
I won't disclose which dies produced the crooked ammo, as there were a few, and it was not consistently bad by any one manufacturer, or price point. I will say, on the positive side, every one I've checked so far with Forster Full Length Bench rest dies (not bushing) have been spot on.
"if you or any of your friends are looking for a new rabbit hole, maybe pick up a concentricity gauge and measure your results" just beware of the answers that you might get.
I've got quite a bit of experience with the 6mm Dasher and already had good dies for it, so it was no surprise that it shot lights out (.114" @100 yds) with my first loading.
The Browning on the other hand did not shoot all that well (1.5" groups at 100). I wasn't too tore up about it at the time, as it was just a generic load with a small range of powder charges. Factory brass, completely prepped, including annealing. I reached pressure in my first round of reloads, and was not able to shoot 2 of the highest charges. I brought them home to be disassembled.
Another item I picked up at the show was a concentricity gauge with a dial on it. For giggles, I have been taking random samplings of my brass after it has been through the dies, looking at runout on the necks. I have also checked runout at the ogive, and near the tip of the bullet. In many cases, the runout is really good, and ironically, these are the rifles/loads that produce excellent repeatable accuracy.
Last night, I just happened to check those 30-06 rounds. Both the fired ones and the unfired ones. The fired cases had very good runout at the necks (.001 to .0015") however, the unfired rounds had HUGE runout. I'm talking like .015" or more in some cases. The runout near the bullet tip was almost .030" in some cases.
I deducted from these checks that the ammo I loaded was not concentric, but the chamber was concentric, so the process of firing was 'correcting' the error that the die was imparting on the brass......CRAZY!!!!! I had two different sets of (albeit cheap) dies, and both imparted runout as compared to a newly fired cases.
I'm now a few fathoms down a rabbit hole going through the ammo and fired cases from the 40+ different cartridges that I load for. I am feeling some new dies in my future.
I won't disclose which dies produced the crooked ammo, as there were a few, and it was not consistently bad by any one manufacturer, or price point. I will say, on the positive side, every one I've checked so far with Forster Full Length Bench rest dies (not bushing) have been spot on.
"if you or any of your friends are looking for a new rabbit hole, maybe pick up a concentricity gauge and measure your results" just beware of the answers that you might get.
