concentricity gauge

[cjmac]

Anyone using a hornady concentricity gauge ?

 

[cjmac]

Iv looked at a few cant really decided. With The hornady gauge you can fix runout , im not so sure how well it works . Or it will do more harm than good.

 

[MrMajestic]

http://www.neconos.com/details.htm

 

[BoydAllen]

The weakness in the Hornady gauge is that it uses the rim to support the rear of the case. Cases should be supported where they expand to the chamber, in front of the rim, because this expansion may cause the rim to be off center, which could distort the reading. If you want to straighten, the H&H will do that, and does not have that fault. It is built like a tank, and is easy to use, both for straightening and measuring loaded ammo. For looking at unloaded cases, I like the Sinclair unit. I have both.

 

[Lapua40X]

I use the Hornady and find that it does a pretty good job but it's sometimes a bit finicky. If I could afford it I'd opt for the:

http://www.accurateshooter.com/gear-reviews/hh-concentricity-gauge-and-bullet-straightener/

 

[bigedp51]

BoydAllen

Question

If the case has unequal case wall thickness the thin side will expand more creating the warped banana shaped case. Meaning wouldn't the base of the case at the pressure ring be egg shaped and cause wobble. I have the Hornady concentricity gauge and if you full length resize and believe in the "Rat turd in the violin case" method of full length resizing wouldn't using the base of the case and the bullet tip negate the egg shaped case. And isn't the bolt face centering the rear of the case in the chamber.

Reloading: Partial Neck Sizing
by Germán A. Salazar
http://riflemansjournal.blogspot.com/2010/06/reloading-partial-neck-sizing.html

"Now the last scenario, a full-length sized case in which the neck is also fully sized. There is clearance at the neck and in the body of the case, the closest fit anywhere is the bullet in the throat. If the neck to bullet concentricity is good (although it needn't be perfect), then the bullet will find good alignment in the throat and the case body and neck will have minimal influence. Let's not forget that the base of the case is supported by the bolt face or the extractor to a certain degree as well; this is yet another influence on alignment. As you can see, there are several points from base to bullet that can have an effect. My procedure is to minimize the influence of those that I can control, namely the case body and neck, and let the alignment be dictated by the fit of the bullet in the throat and to some extent by the bolt's support of the base. Barring a seriously out of square case head, I don't think the bolt can have a negative effect on alignment, only a slightly positive effect from minimizing "case droop" in the chamber. Given that a resized case will usually have a maximum of 0.001" diametrical clearance at the web, this isn't much of a factor anyway."


I bought my Hornady gauge after reading what Mr. Salizar said above on the subject and the late Jim Hull saying he got his best accuracy when his cases fit the chamber like a rat turd in a violin case. Meaning eliminating the case body having any effect on case alignment with the chamber.

I'm not criticizing your comment I just had a lot of cheap poorly made cases with over .003 runout and thought I made the right choice, meaning "bending the ammo" to reduce the runout with the Hornady gauge.

 

[BoydAllen]

I want to measure what touches the chamber and any offset of the rim relative to the back of the case body, after firing distorts that measurement.

As far as rat turds go, I would suggest that perhaps it depends on the venue that is being loaded for. I tend to think of short range benchrest as leading the pack on case sizing, just like long range does on annealing and charge weight tolarances. In the short range game, there is no place at all for crappy brass, and what passes for a loose fit in that arena would be considered a pretty good fit in others. The same can be said about accuracy criteria. A rifle that shoots 3/8 MOA can win anything in position shooting, in a benchrest match, barrels are a long way past their accuracy life at that stage. I am pretty sure that I can shoot my beat up old fire forming barrel better than that.

I have tested discussed with owners who were knowledgeable and owned just about every concentrically gauge that has come down the pike, and I am not totally convinced that straightening accomplishes anything. What I do believe is that concentricity gauges are the only real way to find out what your sizing and seating equipment is producing, and that if you do not like what the report says, you need to get new stuff, rather than fix the output of the old stuff. The grandaddy of the banana case was a fellow by the name of Creighton Audette, and he wrote the definitive article on that, but is should also be remembered that his test setup was a prone rifle chambered in .308, and his sizing die rather severe by today's standards. I believe that the degree of case curvature is a function of how much difference there is between the size of the chamber and the FL die, how much body thickness runout a case has, and the length of the case, because it think that it is a thousandths of inch per inch thing, that, all else being equal, becomes larger with case length (.22 Hornet vs.30-06 for instance). When I saw the Hornady design, my first thought was that some bright young lad had tried to copy the H&H, and missed a couple of strokes in the process, both in case support, and in the straightening mechanism.
As far as loading for varmint rifles goes, if you manage to have a really good fit between your sizing die and the chamber, manage your bump properly, and have a good seating die, I doubt that the varmints will know good brass from mediocre, especially if the seating force of bullets is uniform (annealing) and you have a well tuned load.

 

[VaniB]

No good.

I bought the Hornady gage with much anticipation when it first came out, hoping it would be a useful precision gage which could also be used to manually straighten improperly seated bullets (as they advertise) I got rid of it not to long after. The Sinclair concentricity gage provides much visibly easier readings to use off of the outside of a case, while the Hornady provides readings off of the case axis which are often too small and indistinguishable. IMHO, I feel like those folks who own only a Hornady gage will not know how mediocre that gage really is until they have tried a Sinclair gage.

Oh.....and forget about the Hornady bullet straightenung feature; I found it to be a tedious trial and error process...... and a bad idea anyway! (ie; seat your bullets straight to begin with)

 

[bigedp51]

cjmac

I have the Hornady concentricity gauge and the RCBS case mastering gauge and they give different type readings. Below are both gauges and when you spin the same case on the RCBS gauge you will get larger runout readings than with the Hornady gauge.

Now some food for thought, military chambers are larger in diameter and the base of the case can expand and distort more than in smaller diameter chambers. A cartridge case with uneven case wall thickness will end up egg shaped like a cam at the base when fired. And when this case is full length resized it can cause the base of the case to tilt and look like The Leaning Tower of Pisa sitting on its base. I reload for many milsurp rifles and their "FAT" and "LONG" chambers can warp and ruin a cartridge case on the first firing. On the flip side of this, a custom tight chamber does not torture the brass as much and keeps the brass in better shape.

What I'm getting at is if the base of the case at the expansion ring is egg shaped it will cause deflection of the gauge and show up as runout and the neck of the case might very well be perfectly straight. Below is the NECO gauge and it explains the warped, egg shaped banana shaped cases from not having perfectly made cases with equal wall thickness.

If you are going to inspect your cases for out of round defects I would recommend two gauges, the Sinclair gauge paired with the redding case neck gauge. (best bang for the buck)

What I have found with standard grade cases is if you spin them on the Sinclair neck thickness gauge and have a large variation in neck thickness you will have larger than normal neck runout readings. This is because the case will expand more on the thin side and become egg shaped when fired and then show up as runout. This means moving the gauge to the base of the case and checking for a out of round egg shaped base to see where the wobble is coming from.

Technically you do not need the Hornady gauge if you have a runout gauge like the Sinclair unit. This is because all you would need to do is mark the high spot on the case as a reference mark and chamber your cases with this mark in the same position. (12:00, 6:00 etc)

I have both type gauges and the truth of the matter is the higher quality and more costly cartridge cases you buy the less runout you will have. And with good gauges you will find out if you have a bad case or if you did a bad job setting up your dies.

I have three five gallon buckets of .223/5.56 cases fired by our local police department, it was nothing more than "cheap" close range practice ammunition. And the only thing you will get by inspecting and sorting this type brass is gray hair because these cases are seconds with many defects. It is also very easy to set up your dies incorrectly and cause your own runout, and these gauges will tell you a story.

Now back to the rat turd in the violin case.

The rear of the case is supported by the bolt face when the cartridge is chambered.

And the bullet is centered in the throat and a full length resized case isn't touchng the chamber walls.

To me the Hornady concentricity gauge is holding the cartridge case the same way as it is held in the chamber. And the late Jim Hull of Sierra bullets said he got the best accuracy when his cartridges fit the chamber like a rat turd in a violin case. And as Boyd Allen stated this depends on the type shooting you are doing and I do not have any bench rest rifles.

"BUT" I'm very good at giving covering, suppressive fire with reloads using cheap warped brass with my AR15 rifles in Zombie attacks.

 

[bigedp51]

And cjmac do not buy the RCBS case mastering gauge for checking runout, I had to mod my gauge to get accurate readings. And as soon as I modded the gauge and started using the gauge on a regular basis the paint wore off the V-blocks. Long story short, brass doesn't spin well on bare aluminium and I have to grease the V-blocks to make the case spin without the unit putting on the breaks.

Did I tell you I wish I had the Sinclair runout out gauge with ball bearings for the case to "glide" smoothly on.

 

[BoydAllen]

Concentricity involves the alignment of the neck and seated bullet to the body of the case, and the part of the case that matters is the part that contacts the chamber, the side of the rim does not, neither does the extractor groove. If there is an out of round, lumpy situation at the back of the case, it will effect the alignment of the cartridge in the chamber, so devising a support system that ignores that part of the case serves little purpose except to delude one as to the straightness of his ammo, sort or like preferring an inaccurate scale because it give you consistent readings. IMO the RCBS gauge will always be frictionally challenged. I agree that a tilted head is a bad thing, that is why I don't waste my time with crappy brass or overly loose chambers for situations where I have a choice. Putting this in perspective. I have a Swedish Mauser that will put five under an inch with open sights, and my factory varmint rifles both shoot under 3/8 when the wind is easy, and I am on my game, with flags to refer to. Obviously they are harder to shoot small with than my bench rifles, because of trigger pull, stock design, and scope magnification issues.

 

[bobm]

I made my own in the mid 90's. Not much to choose from back then. My Redding competition seaters make this tool practically un necessary. That is a solid brass 7-08 dummy I made, .000001 runout. I use a short tool that slips over the bullet for the occasional time I have to straighten. It can handle Hornet to 50 BMG.

 

[bigedp51]

Concentricity involves the alignment of the neck and seated bullet to the body of the case, and the part of the case that matters is the part that contacts the chamber, the side of the rim does not, neither does the extractor groove. If there is an out of round, lumpy situation at the back of the case, it will effect the alignment of the cartridge in the chamber, so devising a support system that ignores that part of the case serves little purpose except to delude one as to the straightness of his ammo, sort or like preferring an inaccurate scale because it give you consistent readings. IMO the RCBS gauge will always be frictionally challenged. I agree that a tilted head is a bad thing, that is why I don't waste my time with crappy brass or overly loose chambers for situations where I have a choice. Putting this in perspective. I have a Swedish Mauser that will put five under an inch with open sights, and my factory varmint rifles both shoot under 3/8 when the wind is easy, and I am on my game, with flags to refer to. Obviously they are harder to shoot small with than my bench rifles, because of trigger pull, stock design, and scope magnification issues.

Mr. Boyd Allen

Guess what happens to a cartridge case when the bolt face doesn't support the rear of the case like the Enfield bolt below. Please note when the bolt is closed the extractor moves to the right and away from the case and the cartridge just lays in the chamber. On a Mauser type bolt action the cartridge is centered in the rear by the bolt face and the claw extractor holds the case against the bolt face.

The fired case and photo below are not mine and belong to a "brilliant" moderator in a Enfield forum who thought the chamber was drilled off center. The truth of the matter is the "unsupported case" was laying in the bottom of the chamber unsupported, the primer was speared by the firing pin and held the case in position and the case expanded more on one side and warped. And it is the classic warped banana shaped case and the rear of the case is no long 90 degrees to the axis of the bore inducing even more misalignment. (tilt)

Below a non supported cartridge case that is tilted and leaning on its base.

And below is my photo of my wife and I standing next to the leaning Enfield tower of Piza that had a improperly supported base. :

And if you do not have perfect cases, neck sizing isn't going to fix a snug fitting case in the chamber if its warped, bent and leaning on its base.

And below is what Germán A. Salazar has to say on the subject.

"My procedure is to minimize the influence of those that I can control, namely the case body and neck, and let the alignment be dictated by the fit of the bullet in the throat and to some extent by the bolt's support of the base. Barring a seriously out of square case head, I don't think the bolt can have a negative effect on alignment, only a slightly positive effect from minimizing "case droop" in the chamber. Given that a resized case will usually have a maximum of 0.001" diametrical clearance at the web, this isn't much of a factor anyway."

And Mr. Allen my posting is not meant to be insulting, its more of a discussion between neck sizing and full length resizers and rat turds in a violin case.

And I for one don't do any prep work or check the runout on my .44 Magnum brass before shooting the rats in my basement.
(I hate it when they crap in my violin case)

 

[BoydAllen]

I think that old military rifles are charming, and fun to get out of the safe every once in a blue moon, but frankly, this is accuraterifle.com and no serious contemporary accuracy work is being done with SMLEs or Mausers for that matter, soooo while I see your point, I think that giving people advice based on those actions on an accuracy forum, might mislead the inexperienced. I have to say that I really like my Swede, and I have a owner customized (not by me) no.4 Mk1 that would make you laugh, that I figured out to the extent that I shot at least one five shot 1" group with it with handloads. Having said all that, IMO neither have much of a place in a serious discussion of modern accuracy.

 

[bigedp51]

The point of of my last post was about how the cartridge case is supported in the rear by the bolt face and the bullet being supported in the throat. You Mr. Allen stated you prefer the case to be supported by the case at the expansion ring above the extractor groove and not the bolt face. And my point in using the Enfield rifle was how much the case can be distorted when it isn't supported and reloading the case by neck sizing only. And the main point of the late Jim Hull of Sierra bullets and Germán A. Salazar was to minimize the cases influences in the chamber that can cause accuracy problems.

So again the Hornady concentricity gauge holds the case just as a full length resized cartridge would be in the chamber of the rifle and we still have people calling the gauge a POS. My main point was case distortion even at the rear of the case can cause the bullet to be misaligned with the bore that effects accuracy. The topic of this posting is "concentricity gauges" and what people need to be reminded of is if the case is egg shaped in the rear you will see wobble on the bullet in the front. The main point being full length resizing minimizes the effects of these case distortions and helps improve accuracy. And sizing methods depends on personal preference and the type shooting venues.

I also think if Sgt York was still alive and shooting his M1917 Enfield he would be posting here because Sgt York was an accurate shooter and this isn't Benchrest Central.

 

[BoydAllen]

Until I see an Eifield, Springfield, Mauser, or for that matter Arisaka in the reports of what is given good results in non-nostalga matches, I will stick to discussing modern firearms on accurateshooter.com. Heck, the last three high dollar, light weight, short magnum hunting rifles that I helped friends with the specifications, reamer design, and gunsmith selection for, all were on really well made Remington clones that would have given a good account of themselves in long range matches, if a heavier barrel and suitable stock were substituted. All of that old stuff, is not worth ones time, except for the nostalgia. It is kind of like giving examples on a car forum using a model T's ignition. I might like to have one to drive in a parade, or take to car shows, but I sure wouldn't want one for anything else.

 

[pacificman]

I wasn't going to post anything after reading all of this but I have to say I like the Hornady guage and have read many times before how other reloaders think it's a piece of junk...to each their own. You guys have made things very clear on the qualities of the uses for the different concentricity guages and I guarantee many reading all of this will get a lot of knowledge from it. In very simple terms (for me) with the Hornady gauge it measures the loaded round as if there were an imaginary line drawn through the flash hole and straight out through the bullet tip eliminating any case body irregularities. This to me is valuable info. I also have an RCBS concentricity gauge witch does tell me more about the case irregularities. As has been mentioned ...when the case is FL resized the case irregularities seem to be minimized...but I mainly want my ammo straight from front to back as this is where (in my opinion) more accuracy is achieved. All this info can only help and shooters can make up their minds on what to look for in getting straighter ammo. Thanks bigedp51, BoydAllen, and all.

 

[bigedp51]

Until I see an Eifield, Springfield, Mauser, or for that matter Arisaka in the reports of what is given good results in non-nostalga matches, I will stick to discussing modern firearms on accurateshooter.com. Heck, the last three high dollar, light weight, short magnum hunting rifles that I helped friends with the specifications, reamer design, and gunsmith selection for, all were on really well made Remington clones that would have given a good account of themselves in long range matches, if a heavier barrel and suitable stock were substituted. All of that old stuff, is not worth ones time, except for the nostalgia. It is kind of like giving examples on a car forum using a model T's ignition. I might like to have one to drive in a parade, or take to car shows, but I sure wouldn't want one for anything else.

Mr. Allen

If I was a psychologist I would say you are deflecting your comments to avoid the neck vs full length resizing subject and what other well know shooters have to say about full length resizing. And a accurate rifle does not have to be a bench rest rifle and it fact can be any type rifle in the various shooting venues.

This is the "Reloading Forum (All Calibers) Load Data & Methods, Bullets, Ballistics", and we have people asking questions from hand guns to "ALL" types of rifles. This forum isn't limited to just the rifle you are mainly interested in Mr. Allen. You also stated "no serious contemporary accuracy work is being done with SMLEs" which is incorrect, as there are still matches being held all over the English speaking world using the Enfield rifle, and case alignment in the chamber applies to any rifle.

This posting is about concentricity gauges which means checking your cases for being out of round and being misaligned with the chamber no matter what rifle type you chamber the cartridge in. So below is the third shooting expert I have posted on the advantages of full length resizing and minimizing the cases effects on misalignment with the bore.

Mr. Allen you didn't seem to mind that I was using a .303 British case forming and trim die as a shoulder bump die, and it had a "place in a serious discussion of modern accuracy."

Subject:Re: Shoulder Bump Die?
I am always glad to learn something new. I'll file that one away.

Or the fact that other people seem to appreciate my posts at "accurateshooter.com" and my Yuengling beer.

Subject: .303 Brit. - best dies for??
BigEd...............I have to say your posts are among the best I have seen in this forum. Is the beer a secret case lube for resizing?

And a blow gun in the Amazon jungle has to be accurate shooter in order to bring home the bacon.

 

[VaniB]

I wasn't going to post anything after reading all of this but I have to say I like the Hornady guage and have read many times before how other reloaders think it's a piece of junk...to each their own. .....

Has anybody out there owned both the Sinclair and Hornady gages, and preferred the Hornady gage over the Sinclair? Uh huh.......I didn't think so.

PACIFICMAN, it's not "junk" . On the contrary, the tool itself consists of a solid cast base with precision machined parts like those found in a case trimmer. But it just does the chore very poorly, while the Sinclair does it fast, easy, and efficiently. You know, sometimes we buy things, whether it be a weed whacker, a power washer, or a concentricity gage, and we stick with it simply because we already have it. If I didn't already have a Sinclair concentricity gage as a comparison to start with, I likely would never have never known how inferior the Hornady gage was. Getting useable readings on that tool is just a horrible chore!!!!!! I sold the Hornady and now have the 2 Sinlair gages that I use in bliss ALL the time. ;D

Pacificman, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND BUY A SINCLAIR. You will likely never use the Hornady again!

 

[holstil]

Well, here's another opinion. I like mine.