Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading
On reloading...
unfy:
PS - if anyone was worried about offending me with 'mad scientist' - fear not ... I am not :).
Concerning the copper plated rounds I've been fiddling with - I have yet to actually fire any of them. I've not gotten to the point of getting a reproducible result out of the plating process so I'm not gonna even try feeding any through a weapon yet.
I've been knee deep in work lately (causing much cursing at another company...) and this past weekend and upcoming week/weekend I'll be continuing some "spring-ish cleaning". I've got ideas on the plating, but just need to implement them (time consuming).
Tool making - meh - whatever. Every hand loader will break down and make their own tools eventually :). Still need to fiddle with filling LNL primer tubes faster.
Dan W:
Neeco, I have tried every COAL for Hornady 55SP in .223 and the Hornady recommended 2.200" works very well for me.
I observed no increase in accuracy by loading them longer, and since I use mostly the 55 PSP w/cannelure, the cannelure, when centered on the neck of a case trimmed to 1.750" gave me a COAL of 2.200" give or take a few thousandths
Neeco:
--- Quote from: Dan W on February 04, 2013, 09:38:50 PM ---Neeco, I have tried every COAL for Hornady 55SP in .223 and the Hornady recommended 2.200" works very well for me.
I observed no increase in accuracy by loading them longer, and since I use mostly the 55 PSP w/cannelure, the cannelure, when centered on the neck of a case trimmed to 1.750" gave me a COAL of 2.200" give or take a few thousandths
--- End quote ---
Perfect! Thank you!
I assume you trim every case to 1.750 for the first reload, do you trim for consecutive loads or discard once max is reached?
Dan W:
I trim everything that the cutter will hit on my Possum Hollow trimmer and it is set @ 1.749"
00BUCK:
Midway USA's 55gr Dogtown HP's over 25.7gr of H335 (or WC844), 18" 1/9 BCM SPR stainless barrel with Miculek brake are wicked deadly on P-dogs. I use a COL of 2.210. I group them at under 1" @ 300 meters. My MV is right at 3100fps.
Like Dan, after sizing I run all my brass through my trimmer (RCBS TrimPro with the 3-way cutter) to 1.750. If it gets trimmed, great. If it didn't need trimmed no big deal.
If you are tuning a round to a specific gun it is a good idea to find the distance to the lands as unfy describes above. I split the case neck with a dremel disk so that the bullet could slide in a little easier but still have enough retention to get a good measurement. My distance to the lands for this particular rifle is 2.226 which is kind of tight IMO. I tested several different lengths from 2.19 up to 2.220 and found the sweet spot at 2.210. It took quite a while to work this load up first getting close to MOA with the powder charge then fine tuning with COL, a small charge change and more COL tweaking. Sometimes people get stuck on not finding a good COL and blame the bullet or even the gun when maybe all they need is a powder adjustment. When testing loads I ALWAYS shoot trough a chronograph. That way I can see if a flier had some other issue that changed the velocity. Working up the "perfect" load can be quite time consuming, lots of note taking, a fair amount of frustration, and a TON of patience but the satisfaction you get when it is dialed in is pretty cool. And it makes P-dog thumping a lot more fun when you know you brought a tack driver to the game. For this load I weigh each charge on the digital scale to exactly 25.70.
I can put out around 100 of these an hour.
My plinking load is Amscore or Hornady 55gr FMJBT W/C (whatever I found on sale bulk) over 24.1gr H335 / WC844. COL on these is 2.20 and work acceptably in any of my 5.56 / .223 platforms. I'm right at 2750fps with this load out of a 16" carbine length setup. It's not sub-MOA at 100 yds but plenty good for general plinking and I can crank out around 300 hundred an hour. I don't weigh every charge but I do verify every 10th or 15th load on the digital scale, if I am throwing + or - .1gr I don't bother adjusting the measure. I use the RCBS Uniflow with the small cylinder and metering rod and have found it to be very accurate with almost no deviation in charge weight.
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