Powder Charge or Seating Depth First?

[clunker]

As some of you probably saw in an earlier thread, I had a poor day at the range recently while trying to dial in my first hand loads. Can't blame the loads. I just spent too much time away from the range. Today was much better. I stayed at the range until I was consistently getting sub-MOA with factory ammo (best was 0.36).

Now I'm ready for more hand loads, but I'm reading some conflicting information about whether to try one mild charge with a ladder of seating depths or one seating depth with a ladder of charges. Best group from my previous trip was at 0.050 off the lands, but my form was so poor that I'm not sure I can rely on that data. Does it make a difference which method you use?

 

[Ranger007]

I always tune the load with the charge then fine tune with seating depth. I don’t care where my lands are but that’s just me.

 

[David Christian]

Powder to find node, seating to dial in precision, then fine powder test to confirm.

 

[clunker]

Perfect! That tells me what I need to know. Thanks

 

[Big Mc]

As some of you probably saw in an earlier thread, I had a poor day at the range recently while trying to dial in my first hand loads. Can't blame the loads. I just spent too much time away from the range. Today was much better. I stayed at the range until I was consistently getting sub-MOA with factory ammo (best was 0.36).

Now I'm ready for more hand loads, but I'm reading some conflicting information about whether to try one mild charge with a ladder of seating depths or one seating depth with a ladder of charges. Best group from my previous trip was at 0.050 off the lands, but my form was so poor that I'm not sure I can rely on that data. Does it make a difference which method you use?

Powder first. Always. Tommy Mc

 

[Jordan Wickham]

I'm with these fellas. Powder is always first. If you don't have a powder node you have nothing.
Seating first would give you a tack driver at 100 yards sure but fall apart anywhere except 100 yards cause your SD could be in the teens to twenties. Finding a powder charge that gives good SD / ES then seating it out will keep you really close to the same SD / ES.

 

[HTSmith]

Well lets liven up the conversation. The folks at Berger bullets say find the seating depth first.

 

[AllenOne1]

Well lets liven up the conversation. The folks at Berger bullets say find the seating depth first.

Is that the same Berger that use to tell you not to jump their bullets but now is telling everyone to jump them?

 

[Richard Coody]

Is that the same Berger that use to tell you not to jump their bullets but now is telling everyone to jump them?

Berger bullets were originally designed for targets. Berger was suprised when they started getting contacted by hunters using their products and even more suprised when they were told the hunters weren't shooting their bullets jammed. They had never even considered this market until then.

You should buy a berger reloading manual and read about Walt Berger. Quite a man.

Believing he could make a better rifle bullet, Walt Berger started making his own in 1955 and proved their quality by earning a place in the benchrest shooters hall of fame. After years of crafting bullets by hand in his garage, Walt’s wife, Eunice, encouraged him to expand his fabrication endeavors beyond a part-time hobby. Together, they grew Berger into a large scale precision bullet operation with the highest quality standards in the industry.

 

[JEFFPPC]

Seating depth....powder charge......Seating depth......powder charge......tuner.....Totally over flags

 

[spaniel]

Powder then seating depth. Unless a specific bullet gives a compelling reason to do differently I start .02" off the lands, find my charge, then run a seating depth ladder from jammed on out. It's amazing to see the change in accuracy across both ladders.

 

[mikecr]

Seating depth first.
That's not 'fine tuning', but actual full seating testing at reasonably reduced load(away from powder node) for best coarse seating. Good time to swap primers around too.

Then powder.
Then fine tuning of seating for tightest group shaping.

 

[Richard Coody]

Seating depth first.
That's not 'fine tuning', but actual full seating testing at reasonably reduced load(away from powder node) for best coarse seating. Good time to swap primers around too.

Then powder.
Then fine tuning of seating for tightest group shaping.

I don't think it much matters. Whatever works for you.

With a bench gun i start with a jam. That is my seating depth. Then i work on a powder charge. I may be happy right there. But if not I start backing off in 0.010 increments. If something looks better then i fine tune powder charge and seating depth.

If I am finding a load for a repeater I start at mag length and find a powder charge. Then start the same procedure for seating depth and fine tuning.

Like most things in shooting whatever works for you. People find success with all kinds of different methods.

 

[Texas10]

When I find a seating depth that's ideal, it'll shoot well regardless of powder charge. My recent bullet workup printed .3 to .4 moa groups regardless of charge. I prefer to start at about 3/4 max charge and find the best seating depth. Once there, I start the charge development. Then go back and fine tune the seating.

There are those who start with charge development using a chrono looking for smallest ES and SD, then go to seating depth study. And there are those who do both in one sitting, finding the seating depth that shoots well regardless of charge. IMOP, this is really the best method since you're shooting all test loads under similar humidity/pressure/temperature conditions.

 

[JFrank]

Well lets liven up the conversation. The folks at Berger bullets say find the seating depth first.

I’m under the impression the Berger was referring to the VLD Bullets where the optimum seating could vary up to .120

 

[Ned Ludd]

I’m under the impression the Berger was referring to the VLD Bullets where the optimum seating could vary up to .120

^^^ This. Berger's protocol was designed for optimizing seating depth with VLD bullets by initially testing over very wide seating depth increments. It was aimed at situations where traditional seating depth approaches did not always give satisfactory results. Although it can certainly be used as a starting point, it is not necessary to cover that wide of a range in many cases.

 

[mikecr]

Bullet seating, with FULL TESTING is the most coarse of all adjustments.
A true 1/2moa gun can be taken well over 1moa, and back with seating alone.
In my experience, no amount of powder adjustment does that.
Powder is actually the finest adjustment, right to the kernel.

So when you calibrate anything, you adjust coarse 1st, before moving on to fine adjustments.
It makes no sense to go right to your finest adjustment with a pre-chosen seating, and then trying to do only fine seating testing, as any more would just collapse your powder effort anyway. Then you're thinking 'well the seating I pulled outta my butt must have been pretty close to right", "Doesn't take much from there for the load to go south"......Yeah, you're right, accept your fine seating test was no more than group shaping, and either not full seating testing, or outright bad full seating testing(done from your powder node).

Now if you already know you'll need to be into the lands for your tiny underbore to shoot, then it makes sense to go right there. But with hunting capacity cartridges, there is unknown to investigate.
Here, it can take actual efforts to achieve true 1/2moa, and it helps to follow a logical order.
Coarse, then Fine

 

[BoydAllen]

I have always started with a seating depth that has given good results in the past, to test powder charges looking for nodes, and then make my small moves to seating more and less into the rifling. I have tuned a lot of rifles that way, in relatively few shots. Reading of all of the stuff that some do, and the number of rounds and trips to the range that they make, I am amazed of all of the fuss about something that I seem to be able to do with a lot less time invested. What you need to understand is that when I show up to tune, all of the necessary prep has been done before I arrive. The the barrel is floated, action bedded, scope carefully mounted including lapping rings where needed (no Burris with plastic inserts). The scope is properly adjusted, I have wind flags, the rest and rear bag are correct for that rifle, and I have my loading kit with me, so that I can load where I shoot. If velocity is a concern, I will have set up my chronograph, and I will be shooing at a target that is a good fit for the scope reticle. Generally, I set my seating depth so that I am into the rifling just enough for the rifling to make the lightest of marks on the bullet. Generally I have the seater set for that before I arrive. It is at that point that I start my powder test. If I know that the rifle is very reliable, I do not need many shots to find a node or two. Once I have, I load to the middle charge of the widest one and play with seating depth, making moves of no more than .002. (Remember that I am typically working from touch to various distances into the rifling.) If all goes well, I can have the whole thing done in perhaps an hour to an hour and a half.

 

[INShooter]

Regardless of the method you chose to use, there is no substitute for range time with wind flags.

 

[mikecr]

Wiggling a bullet a couple thou at or within in land contact is not full seating testing at all.

Berger put out a procedure for full seating testing. What a lot of folks learned in doing this, is that beforehand consensus about seating testing was not even close to the real deal. https://www.longrangehunting.com/th...-from-berger-vld-bullets-in-your-rifle.40204/
They had to do this to counter a runaway sentiment that VLDs had to be in the lands to shoot well.
A notion that was never true..

My contention here is that with any of the 99% of cartridges that are not point blank BR underbores, we should slow to consider what seating testing really is, and what it really is not.
For one, full seating testing is not tuning.
What we're doing here is finding favorable, and definitely unfavorable, communication between a bullet and barrel leade. If anything it's a prerequisite to actual tuning.
Then after tuning -with powder, wiggling the seating a bit is merely for group shaping. Like a super-fine tuning, that is precarious to timing(given constant throat erosion), and not about leade communication.

Underbores need high starting pressures to perform as expected. And constant fiddling with timing is needed to be competitive with them. These efforts are not even viable with larger capacity LR cartridges, running way lower peak pressures, with way slower powders, and bullets different in every way there is.
You couldn't even see your buddy on an underbore path while you're on an overbore path, as the directions go so far apart right from the beginning (the bullet).