Seating bullets into the rifling

[divingin]

Touch for me is when you chamber a cartridge with the bullet sharpie covered and the rifling leaves marks that are as wide as the lands but less and 1 1/16 long.

1-1/16" long??? What kind of bullet are you shooting?

 

[Kracken McGraw]

1-1/16" long??? What kind of bullet are you shooting?

Maybe “and one mark a 1/16 long”.

 

[divingin]

Okay, that would make more sense.

 

[Idaho-Lefty]

Read some older Posts, on here about, "Jamming" Sierra, 6mm, 107 gr, MK's and YUP,..
THAT,.. Works !
Short but, repeatable, Rifling Marks on Bullet, what I call a,. "Lite Jam",.. cut my groups,.. in HALF !

 

[Kracken McGraw]

I slip a fired case under the extractor to hold the ejector in while driving the ejector pin out. Of course you have to be three handed to do this!

 

[ebb]

Yes sorry, I have fat fingers 1/16th or smaller, almost none at all.

 

[jccinohio]

Didn't want to read all the other responses.. but for finding touch, maybe try the loctite method with a bullet that is very loose in a case mouth. Remove your ejector and firing pin. Get the case to hold the bullet as lightly as possible, then put some blue loctite inside the case neck and insert bullet long. Hook the round in the extractor and gently slide it in.. let it sit for 5mins or so for the loctite to set up, take it out and measure.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

Didn't want to read all the other responses.. but for finding touch, maybe try the loctite method with a bullet that is very loose in a case mouth. Remove your ejector and firing pin. Get the case to hold the bullet as lightly as possible, then put some blue loctite inside the case neck and insert bullet long. Hook the round in the extractor and gently slide it in.. let it sit for 5mins or so for the loctite to set up, take it out and measure.

I like your method but for discussion purposes, would this actually be touch or more of a soft jam?

 

[jccinohio]

I like your method but for discussion purposes, would this actually be touch or more of a soft jam?

I've actually not tried it, just read about it. watched Youtube videos, and slept in a Holiday Inn Jr... I'm definitely a Youtube reloader, so take my advice with a grain of salt. But I pretend to know a good idea when I see it I would assume the looser the bullet fit, the less the soft jam would be. Could always take .001" or so off the reading.

The way I found touching recently that I actually did.. was take out ejector and f/p.. loaded a round long, and tried chambering it.. Kept seating deeper .001" at a time till I felt no contact at all when opening or closing the bolt (not 'sticky'). There was a definite point where I could feel it stick at one depth, then .001" less there was no feel of touching.

 

[dcali]

An easy and accurate way to do it with a new rifle is to use a barrel stub. Drop a bullet in and measure how far the tip is from the end of the stub. Then seat the same bullet in a dummy case deep enough that it won't touch and drop the whole cartridge into the stub and measure again. The difference between the two measurements is what you need to add to your seating depth to get to touch.

 

[divingin]

An easy and accurate way to do it with a new rifle is to use a barrel stub. Drop a bullet in and measure how far the tip is from the end of the stub. Then seat the same bullet in a dummy case deep enough that it won't touch and drop the whole cartridge into the stub and measure again. The difference between the two measurements is what you need to add to your seating depth to get to touch.

How do you account for throat erosion on the rifle barrel? Or do you?

 

[dcali]

How do you account for throat erosion on the rifle barrel? Or do you?

I don't. I have never been good at measuring worn lands. I just note the setting for touch on a new barrel, and make adjustments from there. If the rifle shoots well at 20 off of "new barrel touch", for example, I just keep in mind that that may move around a bit as the throat wears. Maybe it changes to 15 off "new barrel touch" after the barrel wears 5 thous. I just use it as a reference and make sure to retest now and then to keep it in tune. At the end of the day it doesn't matter exactly where the lands are. I find it helpful to know about where htey are for initial load development, but once I have a good load, I adjust off that, not off the lands.

 

[WVRJ]

For a quick,simple and easy way to find the touch point I use the el cheapo Franklin Armory setup.It uses a cleaning rod with two little clamps that go on it.One is used to measure to the bolt face and the other is set to measure to the tip of a bullet that is gently held in the chamber.The distance from one clamp to the other is the length that touches the lands.The secret to making it work is to average the length of 5 bullets and pick one that's close to the average and use it to get the seating depth and to set up the seating die.This method has worked very well for me.I'm working on a tool that measures of the frontal section of the ogive about where a seating stem will usually go.

 

[Ruger15151]

I am a Wheeler method proponent. As far as maintaining control of my ejector and spring, I have the bolt face inside a plastic bag as I remove the retention pin.
I strip the bolt to clean and maintain it, measure head space on new brass, sized brass, and the touch point for seating depth reference.

Brownells makes a kit to service your bolt. It includes a jig with a plunger that makes it vary easy to remove and replace the plunger roll pin.

I use the wheeler method because it's the only one that is repeatable for me in my rifles.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

Brownells makes a kit to service your bolt. It includes a jig with a plunger that makes it vary easy to remove and replace the plunger roll pin.

I use the wheeler method because it's the only one that is repeatable for me in my rifles.

I keep meaning to get one of those.

 

[Dave M.]

I slip a fired case under the extractor to hold the ejector in while driving the ejector pin out. Of course you have to be three handed to do this!

Just drive the pin out inside of a large ziploc bag to catch the ejector and spring.

 

[Ruger15151]

I keep meaning to get one of those.

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[Infrequent Shooter]

Ok, why do some bullets shoot better touching the lands (or more) and some bullets shoot better backed off a good bit from the lands?
I believe it to be true, I just don't understand why it is so.

 

[Dave M.]

Ok, why do some bullets shoot better touching the lands (or more) and some bullets shoot better backed off a good bit from the lands?
I believe it to be true, I just don't understand why it is so.

Personally, I’ve never found a single rifle I shoot for competition targets to shoot better with jumped bullets as opposed to shooting them .009-.018” off hard jam (using 1.5-3.5” of “neck tension”). I have tested lots of bullets out to as far as .120” off the lands and never found one that will consistently shoot. You may find a few small groups at a particular distance off the lands, but I think you’ll find as many large groups at that same distance. People can disagree all they want, and I’m sure some will, but having firing literally 1000’s of data points I could never convince myself this fallacy holds true.
Dave