Reamer question

[urbanrifleman]

That's called evolution.

In extreme accuracy shooting (real Benchrest), tweaking one area often leads to rethinking another area. And then another. Pretty soon you've come full circle built upon the incrementals of each change adding up to new total that's better. Or maybe not. You don't know until you try it and find out.

Take a look at neck clearance in SR Benchrest. While it's now standard proceedure to run a bit more clearance, shooters got there by tweaks made to neck tension, understanding what different powers like, working with boat tailed bullets, etc.

So we can't just look at neck clearance....in and of itself... and make the leap that since BR shooters run .003 neck clearance that neck clearance doesn't matter and start hanging .010-.011 total on every reamer. Doesn't work like that.

Of course, if you change something and then tell everyone they must do this to compete, then everyone goes back 15 years later, that's called a loop... Not evolution.

Just saying.

 

[LVLAaron]

That's called evolution.

In extreme accuracy shooting (real Benchrest), tweaking one area often leads to rethinking another area. And then another. Pretty soon you've come full circle built upon the incrementals of each change adding up to new total that's better. Or maybe not. You don't know until you try it and find out.

Take a look at neck clearance in SR Benchrest. While it's now standard proceedure to run a bit more clearance, shooters got there by tweaks made to neck tension, understanding what different powers like, working with boat tailed bullets, etc.

So we can't just look at neck clearance....in and of itself... and make the leap that since BR shooters run .003 neck clearance that neck clearance doesn't matter and start hanging .010-.011 total on every reamer. Doesn't work like that.

That's performance tuning in a nutshell. You're just moving bottle necks around until you find the bottle neck that impedes your process the least.

 

[AlNyhus]

That's performance tuning in a nutshell. You're just moving bottle necks around until you find the bottle neck that impedes your process the least.

Exactly.

It's no different than what we do at the race shop doing dyno development on an engine. You find a crumb that leads you to another crumb. You keep doing that and when (and if) you find enough crumbs, you end up with a cookie. And you just keep going. There's always more crumbs out there if you want to work hard enough to find them. Whether it's that or rifle accuracy, most simply won't put in the effort. Or their critical reasoning skills just don't allow them to process info and find a way forward...especially if that means going backwards at first to end up further ahead.

Good shootin' -Al

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Part of the more clearance trend is the move towards different reamer makers. Ones that were more popular, say 10 years ago used to run fat. So your .2433 freebore was still probably closer to .244. Some of the more popular ones today only run a couple tenths fat. So you actually have to learn the specs for the actual reamer manufacturer you deal with. Some just run smaller that others.

 

[kawsam62s]

So in conclusion the freebore is a function of holding the bullet in a chosen location and doesn’t effect accuracy.

 

[LVLAaron]

Don't confuse FB length and diameter

 

[kawsam62s]

Don't confuse FB length and diameter

Then maybe location of the bullet in the neck
Is a better term.

 

[jackieschmidt]

When I first started shooting Competitive Benchrest back in the 1990’s, it was rare to see shooters full length sizing cases. Wilson Hand Dies, a little plastic hammer, and a Sinclair Arbor Press were pretty common in the loading area..
Sometime in the late 1990’s, full length sizing became the norm, as Shooters discovered that getting the case in and out of the chamber with ease had a lot of pluses.

By the general consensus of the era, that should have been an accuracy killer. The opposite seemed to be true, especially when shooters discovered the upper load window with N133.

However, many of us were still stuck in the really tight neck clearance thing. After all, Virgil in the Houston Warehouse was reportedly shooting”zeros” at will. He was still not full length sizing. In fact, he used such a tight neck fit that the spring back of the case was enough to hold the bullet.

The fact that he could not duplicate any of this outdoors gave many shooters pause. What was working in that extremely controlled environment just did not work outside under Match Conditions.

So shooters started increasing clearance all around. Full length sizing and loaded round neck clearance in the .0015 to .002 range now seems to be the norm.

Bart Sauter even won the Nationals two years ago with a no neck turn chamber.

Is this evolution, or simply things coming full circle. I personally think that in the Short Range game, many of the things that on paper should be very beneficial in lowering the Agg simply do account for much of anything.

That is why I say the game is about barrels, bullets, and tuning. You get those three in line, learn to read conditions, and you will be on your way to the podium.