Reloading tolerances and quality checks
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Discovered this forum the other day. Love the format and content has been spot on for me =)
I have been working on consistency of reloads, and wanted to take a quick survey. What are the typical tolerances you guys are able to hold for:
-Shoulder bump back during full length resize (+/-0.0015" here with some unexplained outliers)
-Bullet seating depth (+/-0.001" pretty easily)
-Trim length from shoulder (haven't measured yet)Also, are you guys 100% measuring the above? Especially in resizing, I find that there is always 4-5 out of 100 that might be over or under-sized. For the under-sized ones I resize them again, but prefer not to since that particular piece of brass will have more work done to the neck than the others. If they are sized too much, I usually take that piece of brass out if circulation. Bullet seating depth seems more consistent. Trim length consistency hasn't been great but is unquantified.
My process for 6.5CM is:
- clean w SS pins (trialing rice method this weekend)
- anneal with AMP machine, every firing
- full length resize w expander bushing, whidden dies - using Imperial lube.
- Trim with WFT
- prime w 21st century hand primer
- powder w AD120 + auto trickler
- seat with whidden micrometer die
Press is a Dillon 550 with the Whidden floating die head
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@nocturnal005
How consistent are your loads when fired? Your process looks pretty solid minus the SS pins for cleaning. The rice really does work great. I’ve been using it for years and stumbled on it kinda of by accident long before I read about here. I don’t measure ever piece maybe one out of every 10 or so while sizing, I bump the shoulder back .002 and maybe 2 or 3 out of 100 will be out a touch. Seating depth I measure about the same every 10 or so and usually only have about .001 to maybe .002 variance there as well. I am bad about measuring almost every piece while trimming though, I’m OCD about that for some reason.
If your loads preform well and are consistent then I’d say your good to go.
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@nocturnal005 welcome to the site. Your chasing tolerances well beyond what I aim for so I'll let some others advise you. I will say that Ive been able to get loads into single digit SD's and I know I'm not being that picky.
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Here's what I've been getting, 26" DTA factory barrel. I thought I was doing ok but I hear people are able to get single digit ES. I'm not anywhere close, so just trying to chase down variables. Have not had a chance to shoot at distance; 100 yard groups are ~.5"
2849
2855
2861
2842
2849
2855
2855
2861
2867
2867
2856.1 Avg Velocity
8.1 Std Deviation
25 Extreme Spread
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@nocturnal005
SD of 8.1 is not bad at all for 10 rounds. My go to load for my 6.5x47 isn’t to much better than that SD wise, and it performs great at range. With numbers like that you are likely in a node but have you done an OCW test? If you’ve done an OCW test and are centered up in your node with single digit SD’s then I would test it at distance call it good and shoot. No offense intended at all, is the load .5 or could you be the limiting factor? Like I said no offense intended it’s a legitimate question.
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@nocturnal005 your not really that far off. I have a hunch that switching to the rice will help your neck tenstion. Also how are you cleaning the lube off your cases? Tumble your brass after anealing, sizing, and trimming.
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Get rid of that stainless tumbling process and I bet you'd be down in single digit ES. ;)
