Long Range Rifle/Scope/PRS question(s)

Guys I will retract this deleted post to rephrase my thoughts.
Soft seating is far to inconsistent for long range benchrest accuracy, it's more suited to point blank short range bench rest.



I am not anti annealing I am pro testing.

C-grunt said:

My APR took 26 weeks to complete. According to an email I got they had a backlog on barrels.

I still don't have my rifle though. Been at the FFL since Saturday morning but they still haven't logged it in yet. Probably the last time I use this gunstore for a FFL transfer.

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They had the receiver, barrel, trigger, and just pretty much everything to do my build when I ordered except for the chassis. Still waiting on the Matrix chassis.

Deleted..

Again my post was a reference to Grizzly .com having Barrels in stock.

My apologies Gentlemen for the interference in your thread.
J

South Prairie Jim said:

My apologies Gentlemen for the interference in your thread.
J

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No need for the passive aggressive play, and there’s certainly no reason to continually delete your posts when others don’t align with it. You offered one technique which is relatively common for a specific application, and others of us offered a different technique common for a different specific application.

Sorry again guys, I just didn't wish to derail a great thread with thoughts that do not as you say align.

taliv said:

you’ve just discovered why we anneal brass.

imho it’s easier to make less neck tension more consistent. In my 260ai I only sized half the neck (using a bushing die not screwed in all the way) and only put about 1.5 thou of tension on. Worked great but after a couple firings I had to anneal or I got same symptoms as you.

on my 6.5x47 that strategy didn’t work and I really needed 2-3 thou of tension.

AMP annealer is expensive but if you’ve got the $ it beats the crap out of messing with torches and paint

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I appreciate the input, but I think there is a more substantial problem at work here that I need to work out. This particular issue wasn't caused by not annealing nor will it be cured with annealing. The brass was freshly annealed when new, and the once fired brass was showing substantially the same neck OD as the new brass after both were sized.

I may have a problem with my throat design and this particular bullet ogive location. It looks ok upon inspection, but seating feels strange (both unfired and once fired). I can feel resistance as the bullet starts seating in the case neck, but then when i get closer to my seating depth, the resistance fairly quickly decreases and seems to drop off.

I'm going to double check that the full diameter portion of the bullet ends where I think it does, if so I should be fine and the problem must be in how my dies are sizing the neck. I might either get a different collet, or maybe I'll pick up a Hornady full length sizing die off of GAP's website just to try it (currently have the RCBS matchmaster set).

I'm not new to reloading, long range shooting or even collet dies and annealing, there's just something weird going on here I haven't quite nailed down.

Tried the same loads today at 300 and then some at 750 and 1,000... Not great I'm going to sort the dies out and start over. I might have gotten a bit spoiled shooting .308, Creedmoor and other well established cartridges.... less thoroughly wrung out wildcats might take a little more work, lol.

I did use the range AMP annealer to anneal a few hundred 6.5 CM and all my GT cases while I was there, so something got accomplished anyway.

Just picked up another little clue, maybe useful, maybe not. I called Josh at PVA to ask about the freebore length on my barrel (sounds like it shouldn't cause a problem), and he mentioned that Barnes and to a lesser extent Hornady had had some issues with some bullets having an enlarged what he called a "pressure ring" where the boat tail meets the shank. Josh said bullets with this problem would feel normal during most of the seating process until, at some point resistance sharply dropped off and it felt like the bullet might just drop right into the case.... which perfectly describes the weird feel I've been getting with these loads.

I went out and measured some of the 112gr MBs and, admittedly with calipers, the junction of the boat tail and shank does seem to be up to 0.001" larger than the shank itself. I also measured 108gr ELDs, and they have a ring as well, but it seems to be a much smaller difference.

Josh said a large diameter difference was a manufacturing error, I wonder if a smaller collet would help though. Intuitively, it makes sense that a significantly larger ring/bulge being pushed through the case first could act like an expander ball and lead to poor tension on the rest of the bullet once the ring passed the sized portion of the neck.

Any thoughts? Anyone heard of, or had problems with an oversized "pressure ring" on bullets before?

taliv said:

Call hornady and Barnes and ask them. I don’t think that’s the issue at all. And if your brass has that little spring back, it again would point to the need to anneal

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Annealing removes internal stresses from cold work, softening brass.... Annealed, softened brass should have less spring back, not more.

Walkalong said:

Put the bullet in your quality calipers lengthwise with light pressure and see if they rotate 90 degrees and hang by the pressure ring.
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Yes, they will freely rotate and hang by the pressure ring, the Barnes more freely than the Hornady. My calipers aren't Mitutoyo quality, but the difference for the Barnes looks more like 0.001" as opposed to the 0.0005" or less you're showing.

Varminterror said:

No need for the passive aggressive play, and there’s certainly no reason to continually delete your posts when others don’t align with it. You offered one technique which is relatively common for a specific application, and others of us offered a different technique common for a different specific application.

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Agree, actually deleting the post makes everyone else's post almost useless and no way to learn from anything. If it hadn't been quoted I would not have known what subject we were on. That's what we are here for to share ideas and learn.

Guys
I just tried to bow out of a conversation, please don't make this about me or start calling names etc.

That's not good or necessary.
I have re posted my previously deleted for anyone to read.
To the Op. If your bearing surface/ boat tail junction ( pressures ring) is below the sized portion of your neck or below the neck shoulder junction it would only make sense that you would loose seating pressure beyond that point.

Walkalong said:

Put the bullet in your quality calipers lengthwise with light pressure and see if they rotate 90 degrees and hang by the pressure ring.
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I got my micrometer in and measured some of the 112gr MBs and 108gr ELDs.

The shanks of both bullets are pretty uniformly right on 0.243", with some of the ELDs running 0.2431". The pressure ring portions are quite different though, with the ELDs falling between 0.2431" and 0.2432", and the 112gr MBs falling between 0.2438" and 0.244".

I played around with a few cases for a while last night, sizing the necks, seating 108gr or 112gr and seeing how much pressure it took to push them into the case. I could always push the 112gr into the case, although at longer OALs I had to push the bullet on a piece of wood. I couldn't push the 108gr into the case at any length... I honestly believe this oversized pressure ring is acting like a tiny expander ball and killing my case neck grip on the rest of the bullet shank, the difference btween the neck tension on the 112gr and 108gr is enormous.

Walkalong said:

Going to shoot at Altus tomorrow.

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lucky man
Once October ends up here, nothing PRS left until April, unless we head down south or out west.