How do you guys know how far a bullet is "seated off the lands"?

[BoydAllen]

Eric,
Thanks for your response. Given the difficulties that I read about in posts in this forum, I agree that your conservative advice is the best approach. Sometimes I forget that there is such broad range of experience and aptitude among the readership of on line forums.
Boyd

 

[mikecr]

'JAM' is no more of a standard than 'tight' for a bolt.
You get into leade angles -vs- ogive radius(touch point & area of it), wedging, neck tension, datum comparisons. Then there is length -vs- width of land marks, or other quack methods defining seating, which hold zero meaning to other reloaders, with other situations.

TOUCHING, with but a pinky force, and all else taken to it, is a far better standard of reference.
With this I can log 15thou INTO lands, or 5thou OFF, etc.
Important, is consistent use of a standard tool for measure, and qualifying datums for it(ogive radius).

That people soft seat makes no sense to me, as I'm sure a seater plug provides for better precision in seating.

 

[BoydAllen]

The only reason that I don't use lighter neck tension and soft seat, for a 6PPC is the prospect of having to unchamber a loaded round, because of an emergency cease fire being called. It is very likely that at that neck tension, that the bullet would be left in the rifling, and powder dumped in the action. Other than that issue (which for me is a deal breaker) I have gotten great accuracy that way in testing.

 

[mikecr]

But would you suggest the same for someone shooting a 260?
They might find that nothing in this discussion applies for them.

 

[BoydAllen]

Or they might not....The thing that gets missed is that you need to find out what works for your rifle and components and rifle. I find that there seems to be a bad tendency for some inexperienced shooter/reloaders to think that all they have to do is ask questions on the internet. Rifles are individuals, that have different "preferences" The whole idea of soft seating came to me from a highpower shooter that explained to me that that is now some long range (bolt action rifle) shooters load, for cartridges that are a lot closer to a .260 than my PPC. When I tried it on my rifle, I didn't know of anyone else that was loading that way. I wanted to know, so I tried it.

 

[mikecr]

When you soft seat & pull the rounds, how consistent are the OgvOALs?
What is the logical reasoning, or benefit, in soft seating?

 

[BoydAllen]

The fellows that use it probably like the fact that it automatically compensates for throat wear, and you can be sure that they would never use a load spec that did not shoot well. If you can get away with light neck tension, there is less of an issue with variations in that tension due to differences in the brass. If I knew for sure that I would always be allowed to discharge a loaded round at the beginning of an emergency cease fire, or simply be allowed to raise my bolt effectively blocking striker fall, I would load that way. The accuracy was excellent, and it effectively removed two variables, tuning with neck tension and keeping up with throat wear.

 

[Erik Cortina]

When you soft seat & pull the rounds, how consistent are the OgvOALs?
What is the logical reasoning, or benefit, in soft seating?

The reasoning is that all your rounds will be the exact lenght bolt face to ogive because they get seated when you close the bolt. The idea is better consistency and compensates for throat erosion as you shoot.

 

[mikecr]

So have either of you soft seated, pulled the rounds, and measured consistency in OgvOALs?
I doubt they would be consistent, given the factors already hashed over w/regard to jam & what it 'could' mean.
I bring it up because there are usually qualifiers to one result or another.

A lot of competitors do all kinds of things, but it seems more an abstract, often without reasoning. And plenty of shooters find best accuracy seated elsewhere.

I suggest the soft seating would apply with success when a load requires it to get into an extreme pressure node. This, being a work around for more traditional tuning means.
Otherwise, I can't think of a reason that such an action would apply well for the rest of us.
After all, larger capacity cartridges, pushing heavier bullets, are not so easy to run at extreme pressures without overwhelming/uncompetitive problems. And they wouldn't need soft seating to get there anyway.

I can understand it with my friends 30br, it works there to get him to a high pressure burn he couldn't get otherwise, given that he's so under-capacity for bore. But this doesn't apply in something like a 260 or 7RUM, etc.
And that's where I think any declaration of soft seating as ideal really should to be qualified with reasoning.

 

[Erik Cortina]

I don't soft seat. You asked the reasoning behind it, so I told you.

 

[BoydAllen]

As I said earlier, although I don't, I have tried it, and the way that I measure the quality of a procedure is at the target, and the results were very good. I know one world record holder that jumps his bullets, and others that seat into the lands (at least I am pretty sure). There is more than one way to find an accurate tune. Take your pick.

 

[jo191145]

Sad but true story.

Loned a freind my Hornady tool and case guage so he could find his distance to lands, 308W.
Gave him a quick lesson on its use on my rifle.
Next week he brought it back and I asked him how it went.
He said "fine I quess but no matter how hard I tried I could'nt get it to jam the bullet .030" for an accurate measurement.
Took my brain a couple of seconds to understand what he meant by that.
"Why would you want too. You find the DTL as I showed you then seat .030" further out and thats .030.'' jam.
(Excuse my incorrect use of the terminology jam with my friend folks)
Took his brain a couple of seconds to register and He said "Oh Yeah, I quess I was'nt thinking."

As it happens I was glad to get it back as I was interested in trying a new bullet in my 308W also.
Later that day I started measuring. When I had the tool and bullet set to just touching I used the comoparator for measuring.
Its then I noticed that the plastic rod had been basically turned to rubber from abuse.
The short section of plastic that is halved (the weakspot) had become unstable and springy prone to bending with very little pressure.
Quite apparent no more accurate measurements would be taken with that tool. In the garbage and ordered a new one.

The moral of the story is quite clear. That tool is not designed to be heavy handed. A light touch is all thats needed and warrented.
Rumor has it some of the first models had metal rods. Perhaps they can handle abuse better.
Also, if you push the bullet into the throat with enough force to flex that plastic shaft at its weak point and lock it in place with that force.
When you extract the tool that shaft will return to normal and your measurement will be completely false.

The Hornady tool will give you measurements for DTL as its designed to do.
If your looking for that subjective, ever changing jam point you'll need some dummy bullets.

 

[ddkearney]

My Stoney Point tool (pre-Hornady) has a metal rod, not plastic. I have a hard time imagining how a plastic push insert would be able to provide any consistency. Don

 

[jo191145]

Don

By using them gently. I do wish they went back to the metal rod tho.

PS, You could have run with it Boyd, No harm no foul It is what it is