Seat/charge or charge/seat

[Hard rock]

Maybe if it was worded differently, like what is the final thing you do in load development , powder charge or seating depth.

Are we running out of things too discuss or what , not fair trick question.

 

[WildRose]

Maybe if it was worded differently, like what is the final thing you do in load development , powder charge or seating depth.

Possibly. I read it as "where to start".

Of course as much as 70% of human communication is non verbal based on physical cues so things don't always work the same in writing as they do face to face or even on the phone. Tone and inflection make a huge difference along with body and facial reactions.

 

[Hard rock]

I like to start as close as possible to the lands, but not jambing. So I aim for .005" off. And then look for nodes with 3 or 4 shot groups spaced up from about 6% below of max load, in .06% (determined variably based on books, quickload, word of mouth or a combination). This way, I think I am getting to max pressure with initial load development. I run the shots over Labradar. Consistency of velocity also helps to find the sweet spot. Once I have the sweet spot, THEN, I seat deeper in increments of 15 or 20 thou to see if I can improve. Since deeper seating results in lower pressure, I don't have to worry about excess pressure later in the load development process. I think of this as a "charge first" process, but I guess QuietTexan has a point that we are ALL pretty much looking at basic BTO seating depth first. But systematically varying the seating depth comes AFTER varying the charge weights.

I just want to get the issue of maximum load and pressure worries over with at the beginning. Seems to me that if you chose some arbitrary charge, say 94% of book max and then varied the seating depth, you would have to worry about pressure signs as you got closer to the lands. So lets say you loaded at 70, 50, 30, and 10 thousand off the lands and determined that your gun likes 30, and then you start to up the charges, you will be looking for pressure signs twice. I hate the suspense of looking at my primers and looking for marred brass and worrying I am over pressure twice....

But this is a very valid question. I'll put it differently: Does optimal seating depth vary with charge, or does the optimal charge vary with seating depth? Which is more? I don't honestly know.

Would this ideology still apply too a compressed charge?

 

[WildRose]

Would this ideology still apply too a compressed charge?

Not if I'm going to be behind the gun when it goes off.

 

[Wolf76]

This conversation is like which came first "chicken or the egg". There's a bunch of different ways to achieve great results. If a certain process makes sense to you, run with it.
I'm a bullet seating first camp. Once optimal seating depth has been determined...it hasn't changed regardless of powder or powder charge IME. This allows me to quickly determine viability of powder.
I'm aware Eric Cortina does it exactly the opposite way....to each there own.

The ideal load will require both to be tuned for the gun....so there aren't any shortcuts.

 

[Tree Farmer]

Starting with seating depth first has worked well for me.

 

[PddPdd]

For me it depends on what brand of bullets I'm loading. For Hammers I use the geometry of the case neck and PDR bands to determine seating depth and then try incremental powder charges to find pressure and nodes. For most other bullets I would do seating depth testing first.

 

[SteveBurton]

I've tried both Gen 1 and Gen 2 versions of Satterlee's method. I always go back to a charge ladder first and pick the highest node. Guess I'm just stuck in my ways. I do find max mag length whether it's internal or DBM. 9 times out of 10 it is nowhere close to the lands. If I can touch the lands, I start at 0.015 off.

 

[QuietTexan]

Choosing an arbitrary CBTO to begin is not the same as doing seating testing first.

Agree, I was trying to show were people making arbitrary decisions slot in and that, knowingly or unknowingly, they are making a decision that could be influenced if they did real testing here and looked at the results.

While I understand (and sometimes do) pick an arbitrary point to start, I admit that I'm skipping a step that I can't just tweak later, and would have to start over to adjust.

Possibly. I read it as "where to start".

Yeah me too. Might seem facile to say well of course seating comes first because otherwise there's no bullet to hold the powder in, but in reality there's a lot of work that goes into initial coarse seating depth decisions.

There's a lot of short cuts and bits of folksy wisdom also, but it's annoying when someone comes to me and says "X bullet just don't shoot!" and when I ask about seating they're moving in 0.001" increments back from whatever their random mag length is and they're mad about wasting components. Finding where a bullet DOES shoot well is important before claiming it just won't, and sometimes that takes doing things you "know for sure just won't work". Won't shoot in general and "won't at the place I need it to" are two very different things.

Nosler ABLRs are like this IMO, a lot of guys "couldn't get them to work", but all it took for me was seating them to book COL and the groups shrunk by 200% compared to 0.010" off the lands. More interesting was this was in a 300 RUM so I was seating the bullet way down in the case with the base past the shoulder, so multiple levels of conventional wisdom were disproved by doing coarse seating depth testing first. The 210gn ABLR is a great bullet in my rifle.

 

[Recon$$]

I've been a charge first guy. Recently I started loading hammers in a bolt gun and I was forced to adjust seating first. My usual .01 off and find the best velocity node did not work at all. So I'd say both work but I've moved to the projectile dependant group.

 

[sierracharlie338]

Nosler ABLRs are like this IMO, a lot of guys "couldn't get them to work", but all it took for me was seating them to book COL and the groups shrunk by 200% compared to 0.010" off the lands. More interesting was this was in a 300 RUM so I was seating the bullet way down in the case with the base past the shoulder, so multiple levels of conventional wisdom were disproved by doing coarse seating depth testing first. The 210gn ABLR is a great bullet in my rifle.

That is intriguing to me because ever since I've started hand loading I've never worked up loads using book COAL. I've seen it and heard mention of it a few times but never done it. Makes sense especially if you are running a SAMMI chamber, which most people are. I have a project in the works I'll be using this approach for and possibly a second.

 

[WildRose]

Agree, I was trying to show were people making arbitrary decisions slot in and that, knowingly or unknowingly, they are making a decision that could be influenced if they did real testing here and looked at the results.

While I understand (and sometimes do) pick an arbitrary point to start, I admit that I'm skipping a step that I can't just tweak later, and would have to start over to adjust.


Yeah me too. Might seem facile to say well of course seating comes first because otherwise there's no bullet to hold the powder in, but in reality there's a lot of work that goes into initial coarse seating depth decisions.

There's a lot of short cuts and bits of folksy wisdom also, but it's annoying when someone comes to me and says "X bullet just don't shoot!" and when I ask about seating they're moving in 0.001" increments back from whatever their random mag length is and they're mad about wasting components. Finding where a bullet DOES shoot well is important before claiming it just won't, and sometimes that takes doing things you "know for sure just won't work". Won't shoot in general and "won't at the place I need it to" are two very different things.

Nosler ABLRs are like this IMO, a lot of guys "couldn't get them to work", but all it took for me was seating them to book COL and the groups shrunk by 200% compared to 0.010" off the lands. More interesting was this was in a 300 RUM so I was seating the bullet way down in the case with the base past the shoulder, so multiple levels of conventional wisdom were disproved by doing coarse seating depth testing first. The 210gn ABLR is a great bullet in my rifle.

Hard to "make a bullet work" if you aren't making any real effort to do so.

 

[QuietTexan]

That is intriguing to me because ever since I've started hand loading I've never worked up loads using book COAL. I've seen it and heard mention of it a few times but never done it. Makes sense especially if you are running a SAMMI chamber, which most people are. I have a project in the works I'll be using this approach for and possibly a second.

ABLRs were one bullet that the four main coarse seating depth ranges overlapped with book COL, which is very rare in my 300 RUM. With the 210 Bergers book COL was 0.229" off the lands.