help, old geezers! comparating not so great bullets

[ffffg]

Many years ago the bullets that were available were not competition quality so i beleive, the old target shooters had to sort bullets.. Im using a soso bullet in an ultralight ruger and the short magazine and long throat forces me to use a stubby bullet ie speer 52 gr hp.. its great, fits the box, has a very forward ogive.. the problem is quality.. Im running into sorting problems.. Ive sorted the boxes with a sinclare comparator (one that fits on the blade of a digital caliper) in lots of .002 lengths using the comparator.. When i seat them, the forster die sets them at differing comparator lenghts becouse it is not in the same place as the comparator measurement, bullet quality problems.. This causes the loaded rounds lenght at the ogive to vary up to .005.. this ultralite has a 20 inch barrel and is very light 7/16 inch at the end of the barrel and picky.. what is the best way to get them sorted further rather than reloading them and sorting/discarding from there,.. im using it for hunter type accuracy so i want the bullets to go same point of impact.. do i just seat at the best lenght and let it go at that, or seat them short and work each bullet down to the correct comparater lenght screwing down the adjustable forester seater till it hits the correct distance to the rifling..? Help? The problem im haveing is the more i comparate and seat the more the bullet forms to my tools. could this harden the copper or lead or cause other problems?.. The bullets dont seem to be round also and this makes the measuring and finished ogive length wierd, changing as its seated or c0maparated more than once.. thanks dave..

 

[BoydAllen]

Have you noticed much improvement from sorting?

 

[ffffg]

on a skinny whippy barrel it seems signtificant. i made some other changes the same day and its tough to tell.. im just trying to get consistnecy from knowledge not hard knocks.. they started shooting 1/2 inch and under with three groups that day with correct seating depth.. .005 off correct seating depth was ugly.. so im just trying to figure it out.. berger bullets dont need to be sorted by my measurments, and they will end most of these problems.. and they dont cost that much more.. but they are interested in bc and that makes that type of bullet too long for most magazines and a good seating depth that shoots well..dave

 

[357Mag]

comparating not so great bullets

FFFFG -

Howdy !

I have sorted bullets by wt, by base-to-ogive... and both methods together.
I'm not coninved one needs to do BOTH. as a bad actor in the latter method tends to also fail sorting by the former method.

Befort faulting the bullets ( more ), let's think outside the box....

How much neck tension are you running ?

Have you tried 2-3 different neck tensions ?

We used to shoot a M-77 in .250-3000, with 75gr Sierras exclusively ( for both live varmint and target ). That gun had a " soda-straw " barrel, too.
It did not " wake up " accuracy wise, until we started assembling loads w/ a Wilson
hand-operated ( or arbor press operated ) NS die. Only one NS bushing change off factory Bonanaza .250 Sav FL die neck spec's was necessary; and we were god-to-go accuracy-wise.

I mention the light .25 cal experience, because the SIerra .25 calibre 75's are varmint-type/wt /construction bullets.

Just thinking out-load.

BEst of luck in your endeavors.

Regards,
357Mag

 

[357Mag]

comparating not so great bullets

FFFFG -

Howdy !

My first post was cut short.

Wanted to also mention that " ...It's all about the neck ".

I DK if you have tried or regularly do any outside neck turning ?

Even for factory chambers ( SAAMI spec ), we early-on discovered the virtues of
something as simple as outside neck turning our brass to remove " orange peel ".
Those exercises showed us that for a lot of factory-new brass ( 35yr ago ), the necks / neck wall thickness were irregular.

Neck turning even to attempt a simple skim removal of a minimum of material, ended up showing necks with shiny areas where excess brass was cut away, and un-touched necks w/ factory finish/texture.

My point:
Are your neck walls / neck thicknesses also consistent ?
This would greatly help towards keeping you neck tension / bullet retention all the same.

Just a thought.

Regards,
357Mag

 

[mikecr]

This causes the loaded rounds lenght at the ogive to vary up to .005..

Thing is, there is no such place as "at the ogive". The ogive is not a place, but the radius of a nose.
The 'place' you're referring to is a place on the nose.
What difference does it make?
Well as the ogive changes(a nose radius), that place of measure(your tool contact point) changes. And this may or may not relate to actual distance from leade contact in a given barrel. Depends on how well your tool matches your throat leade.

This is where a barrel stub throated along with your chamber(a gizzy) trumps any other tool for seating depth measurements. Minus this, the best anyone can do is stick with the same standard used in determining what the barrel likes -throughout the barrel's life.
It sounds like you're doing just that..

Your seater is setting consistant OAL with it's standard. Your comparator is a different standard..
Unless the bullets are absolutely perfectly consistent, 2 different standards will not match. Gotta expect that.
But you've determined that the barrel likes X.XXX OAL to one of them standards, and that's the one that counts.

So these bullet's obviously have radius variance. If you choose to stay with these, then you'll have to vary and validate a standard producing best results. By this I mean you can test for best seating using the die. Then test for best seating using your comparator(short seating and adjusting die for comparator matchs). Then trying it with another gauge standard all together(like Sinclair's 'nut'). One of these will likely shoot better than the others.

If this seems beyond reasonable, well so does using bad bullet's to save money...

 

[ffffg]

Hi thanks for your replys.. In my first post is expained im haveing to use cheaply made bullets to fit the magazine in the ruger ultra light, not save money, .. .. My necks are inside turned using the lee zero error dies,(antiques at this time).. Ive used two kneck tensions and the lee sizer tends to be fine.. i will check neck thickness consistnecy, but it seems to be a tough battle as cases tend to harden with time and can then be annealed and etc but giving variable results.. the main problem seems to stem from the barrel heating up.. this becomming apparent with many more times at the range, and noteing better groups come with windy days when long periods between shots.. alsosundays when a bunch of friends are talking more than shooting.. Barrel heating seems to crop up with the most powder h380 using magnum primers, giving more velocity, and more heat... these are more accurate on a cool windy day with more time between shots definitly yields more half minute moa or less groups...... Becouse the h380 heats up so fast im going to stick with an older varget load with less velocity, poorer shoot string velocity variance, but will hit the 3 inch gong on our 300 yard range with successive shots.. (when ive got the wind figured right.. Its great for gophers and such that way, when the gun is not cold very often.. thanks for all your help, and ill look into varying kneck tensions, seems like a good idea.. dave