Painless Load Prep (Precursor to Painless Load Development)

[huntnful]

Not everything is voodoo. I don’t know EXACTLY what matters the most. I’m leery about some things. But I’ve seen good gun smiths that are good reloaders shoot magnum hunting weight rifles smaller than almost every .223’s and 6mm ever shared on here. They aren’t all full of shit about everything. And obviously the rifles are exceptionally built. But I think some stuff is very minute and I personally don’t care to dive into it that much because the juice isn’t worth the squeeze to me. I’m just trying to shoot something in the lungs. No more, no less.

 

[huntnful]

Ha that’s fair.
So I have had case head separations before, but it was on 223 brass after 12 reloads. I just chalked it up to the price of doing business.

I’m 100% for learning a better way of doing things as long as there is a good reason.

So here is a sized piece of Starline 223. Using a 30cal competitor bushing to capture the shoulder datum. I zeroed my calipers to this case length. This length represents where my die is currently set. AKA I screwed the die down until it touched the shell holder, and then a little extra so I could get “cam-over” on my press.
View attachment 987971
Now here is a fired piece of brass from the same lot. Fired today. So I had 0.0115” of growth compared to the resized case above.
View attachment 987972

If I were to bump less, you’re telling me my groups would likely be more consistent, I’d have less case length growth, and potentially more case life? Possibly at the expense of reliable feeding at extremely short shoulder bumps?

Yeah you’re definitely getting some cam over alright lol.

Only you can answer those questions by doing it with your system though. Have you had terrible bolt closure with .003 shoulder bumps?

 

[wind gypsy]

If I were to bump less, you’re telling me my groups would likely be more consistent, I’d have less case length growth, and potentially more case life? Possibly at the expense of reliable feeding at extremely short shoulder bumps?

Yes except 3-4 thou should have zero felt resistance feeding.

 

[43.6N]

Please don’t miss-interpret my post above. I’m genuinely surprised because up till now I’ve always considered setting the sizing die to the shell holder as the generally accepted way that everyone set them up.

Definitely learned something new tonight.

I’ll adjust my dies, and see what it does to my groups.
Thanks guys

 

[philcox]

Does bumping shoulder 2-4 thou, vs bumping 8-12 thou have any meaningful impact on accuracy as long as your consistent in the bump?

I get wanting to have a tight fit to the chamber, but this smells of dogma that was never actually proved out with meaningful groups.

Tight fitting chamber has nothing to do as to why I am limiting “bump”, I am just trying to limit case length growth so I potentially get more firing out of a brass before toss or trim.

I’ll find out about accuracy when I start shooting the stuff. The pieces I did yesterday chambered with no resistance, so I think I’m good to go…


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[tall]

Does bumping shoulder 2-4 thou, vs bumping 8-12 thou have any meaningful impact on accuracy as long as your consistent in the bump?

I get wanting to have a tight fit to the chamber, but this smells of dogma that was never actually proved out with meaningful groups.

Here are some observations from a world class shooter. He does the short bump.

 

[ShakoMako]

Following this thread with great interest as brass prep and fussing with wet vs dry tumbling, trimming, etc is my least favorite aspect of reloading and a contributing factor to a long hiatus from it over the past 10 years. I never had an inkling of interest in annealing. I reload 308, 6.5 CM, and 223 so nothing remotely hard to obtain.

Comments above indicate that @Formidilosus and others have noted no measurable gains in accuracy or reliability with ‘second tier’ brass (FC, Hornady, R-P) for hunting loads where the reloader is satisfied with a handful of firings per case before pitching it.

Let me take it one further step in challenging reloading orthodoxy: Have you observed measurable variations in mixed headstamp lots using a particular load combo? E.g. bullet, primer, powder charge are consistent, but intermingled Hornady, FC brass in a lot.

Question 2 - for those of you saying to throw away a hard-to-chamber cartridge… are you worried about discovering a particular case has become hard to chamber when reloading with an animal in front of you? Or are you determining ‘hard to chamber’ at the bench with a case gauge?

​

 

[mtnbound]

Following this thread with great interest as brass prep and fussing with wet vs dry tumbling, trimming, etc is my least favorite aspect of reloading and a contributing factor to a long hiatus from it over the past 10 years. I never had an inkling of interest in annealing. I reload 308, 6.5 CM, and 223 so nothing remotely hard to obtain.

Comments above indicate that @Formidilosus and others have noted no measurable gains in accuracy or reliability with ‘second tier’ brass (FC, Hornady, R-P) for hunting loads where the reloader is satisfied with a handful of firings per case before pitching it.

Let me take it one further step in challenging reloading orthodoxy: Have you observed measurable variations in mixed headstamp lots using a particular load combo? E.g. bullet, primer, powder charge are consistent, but intermingled Hornady, FC brass in a lot.

Question 2 - for those of you saying to throw away a hard-to-chamber cartridge… are you worried about discovering a particular case has become hard to chamber when reloading with an animal in front of you? Or are you determining ‘hard to chamber’ at the bench with a case gauge?

​

What do you mean by "observed measurable variations"?

Question 2 - I carry a round in the chamber for hunting, so if I have any issue when I am loading one in the chamber, I eject it and rechamber a different round. The non-chambering round is marked, and I will address it when I return to the loading bench.
If I am out training and a round does not chamber, it is marked and addressed later.

 

[ShakoMako]

What do you mean by "observed measurable variations"?

thanks for the reply - I mean impacts of mixed head stamp brass on pressure signs and accuracy.

My impression is that lot of these two threads dispel commonly held reloading beliefs about cleaning brass, COAL, load dev, etc. Just curious if that may extend to the notion that the brass case is as big as a determinant for safe and accurate reloads as it’s made out to be. I understand different brass manufacturers = different grains of H2O and case capacity, stretch etc. But does it actually matter?

 

[mtnbound]

Another thing when you’re sizing the initial piece of brass to get a proper shoulder bump (or just making it fit in your chamber), you should use a new piece each time you’re adjusting the die. If you keep resizing the same piece, and just bumping it further and further and further until it’s correct, it’ll actually be much harder and have more spring back.

So when you grab another piece, you’ll actually bump it more than that initial piece that you spent all that time setting up

My interpretation of your statement is that you are changing your die setting for each piece of brass. Is that correct, or am I misreading it?

 

[WeiserBucks]

Question 2 - for those of you saying to throw away a hard-to-chamber cartridge… are you worried about discovering a particular case has become hard to chamber when reloading with an animal in front of you? Or are you determining ‘hard to chamber’ at the bench with a case gauge?

Best practice is to bring known, proven loads in the field. Sort out all of your issues well in advance and proof everything before you hit the woods. Don't wait until killing time to discover the issues.

 

[Chris in TN]

I have for a long time tried to set every die set, for calibers I only own one rifle for, to bump ~0.002" for bolt guns and ~0.0025 to 0.003" for semi-autos. If I try to go less than ~0.002" I always end up with tight chambering ammo. I don't like that, especially when my kids might use it.

I failed to do this with one rifle and was reminded when an overworked case head separated on me. Thankfully it didn't stick in the chamber. Wasn't a hot load, just an overworked piece of brass, that seemed to crack out around 99% of the case then the other 1% came loose as the case was ejecting. Oops. But, again, I really don't want to try to go any less than 0.002" because my oldest child is old enough to hunt on her own now, and I'm a bit paranoid about any weirdness involved in loading or unloading her rifle. So I check every round before sending her off to hunt with it.

(ETA: I check every hunting round for bolt action hunting guns. I resize semi-auto brass enough that I don't believe manual checks are needed, as long as I keep cases trimmed short enough).

Also, because I am an incredibly cheap person, the way I have found to measure shoulder bump, for most bottlenecked cases, is to invert a fired 9mm pistol case on the shoulder, measure the whole thing very carefully, mark its location with a sharpie, resize, then reassemble and remeasure. This essentially gives me an index measurement of sorts, not an absolute measurement, but that has shown to be more than sufficient, IME.

 

[huntnful]

My interpretation of your statement is that you are changing your die setting for each piece of brass. Is that correct, or am I misreading it?

Correct. Like if you want a .003 bump. But you bump the first piece .001 and need to adjust the die deeper.

 

[ID_Matt]

And that’s also a good way to get rough chambering and stuck cases in adverse conditions.

This nearly bit me this year for the first time. Min spec cut chamber and sizing back 2-3 thou. Somehow I got some carbon flake or who knows what in my chamber and could not chamber a round on a deer. Spent 5 minutes pulling the bolt out, finding a dry stick I could get in there to scrape whatever it was out and finally getting it to chamber one. Luckily the deer hung around. I am not sure if more head space would have made it any different but it sure made me question having such a tightly cut chamber.

 

[Mule3006Elk]

[mention]philcox [/mention] keep in mind that the brass you are measuring for shoulder length, has bounced back a bit from your true chamber measurements. Likely mouse turds territory but when you thank your bumping it .002, you may be .004. May not be a bad thing since brass is cheap and you want it to cycle 100% of the time


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Interesting. Never thought about shoulder spring back on fired brass. I know you get spring in or out with bushing dies and mandrels. I'll need to check fired brass and see how the bolt closes. If they do in fact spring back 0.002 is any shoulder bump needed?

 

[Chris in TN]

Correct. Like if you want a .003 bump. But you bump the first piece .001 and need to adjust the die deeper.

FWIW….a standard 7/8x14 reloading die is 14 threads per inch. So each full turn of the die is ~1/14th of an inch, so roughly ten degrees of die turn will move you 0.002”. Five degrees will move -0.001”.

Yeah, it’s hard to eyeball five degrees. But it’s entirely possible to make angular marks every 10(?) degrees on the flat top of a press’s threaded insert, or to measure the diameter of the part of the die that has writing engraved and figure out how much to twist it. Point being you don’t have to just screw it back and forth guessing at your initial adjustments.

 

[TimberHunter]

Interesting. Never thought about shoulder spring back on fired brass. I know you get spring in or out with bushing dies and mandrels. I'll need to check fired brass and see how the bolt closes. If they do in fact spring back 0.002 is any shoulder bump needed?

I’m not the dude to ask… but what I’ve read is to get an accurate copy of your chamber, just neck size the brass and shoot it a few times and then measure the shoulder. That will give you close to a copy of your chamber and then you’ll know what .002-.004 bump looks like.

Or the simple way, just bump .002 from your once fired brass, reload and shoot is 5 or so times and throw the brass away like form said


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[wind gypsy]

My impression is that lot of these two threads dispel commonly held reloading beliefs about cleaning brass, COAL, load dev, etc. Just curious if that may extend to the notion that the brass case is as big as a determinant for safe and accurate reloads as it’s made out to be. I understand different brass manufacturers = different grains of H2O and case capacity, stretch etc. But does it actually matter?

There isn't one answer. There's lots of cases where it isn't going to materially impact a hunters odds of making a shot in field conditions but there are extremes where it absolutely matters and it's an easy variable to control.

Work up a top end 300 WM load in Norma brass with a 95 grain h20 capacity, then mix in some bertram brass with 88 gr h20 capacity without changing anything else and it is going to matter.

Smaller case example - you can take some ADG creedmoor brass with 49 grains capacity and mix it with hornady that avgs close to 53 grains you're asking for poor results.

 

[Formidilosus]

Following this thread with great interest as brass prep and fussing with wet vs dry tumbling, trimming, etc is my least favorite aspect of reloading and a contributing factor to a long hiatus from it over the past 10 years. I never had an inkling of interest in annealing. I reload 308, 6.5 CM, and 223 so nothing remotely hard to obtain.

Comments above indicate that @Formidilosus and others have noted no measurable gains in accuracy or reliability with ‘second tier’ brass (FC, Hornady, R-P) for hunting loads where the reloader is satisfied with a handful of firings per case before pitching it.

Let me take it one further step in challenging reloading orthodoxy: Have you observed measurable variations in mixed headstamp lots using a particular load combo? E.g. bullet, primer, powder charge are consistent, but intermingled Hornady, FC brass in a lot.

Question 2 - for those of you saying to throw away a hard-to-chamber cartridge… are you worried about discovering a particular case has become hard to chamber when reloading with an animal in front of you? Or are you determining ‘hard to chamber’ at the bench with a case gauge?

​

Yes, if you are using a load that is max, or near max- changing brass can and does result in pressure issues in brass with less case capacity. But this also depends on which cartridge and which powder as well.
But for most I keep different brass separate with the loads unless I have shot both to determine that there are no issues.

 

[ShakoMako]

Yes, if you are using a load that is max, or near max- changing brass can and does result in pressure issues in brass with less case capacity. But this also depends on which cartridge and which powder as well.
But for most I keep different brass separate with the loads unless I have shot both to determine that there are no issues.

Thank you and @wind gypsy for your replies- I’ll continue sticking with one brand of brass for until I can assess safety and compatibility across loads.