Handloading the 6.5 Creed, I'm gettin serious now.

[brutus51]

Not new to reloading rifles, I've done 30/06, 30/30, 45/70, 5.56 and 6.8 SPC in my almost 50 years of being in the hobby but now I've done went and got me one of those new fangled 6.5 Creedmoor's.
After doing a lot of research I've discovered the real deal sharpshooters seat their bullets to an overall length to the ogive. I never did this I just used the overall recommended by the mfg. but the ogive thing makes a lot of sense to me for bolt rifles, not so much for lever guns or semi's where overall lgth. is limited by the action type. So I went ahead and bought the Hornady setup for measuring along with the modified cases for 30/06 and 6.5.
And the big question is:
How far from the rifle lands do you start?
.020 is what I've seen as a good starting point but I'm wondering how close or far away did you find the sweet spot for your rifle? Gotta love this hobby.

 

[Walkalong]

.020 is a good place to start, and for now, other things will make bigger differences in group size. Start there and shoot some, and don't worry about it for now.

 

[CarJunkieLS1]

Sometimes it depends on the bullets for how much jump they want. My experience is .030-.070 jump and sometimes even farther where every hunting bullet I've shot seems to shoot well. If your feeding from a mag set them at mag length and if they don't shoot well, then you can only go one direction.

 

[Olympus]

I start at 0.015 off the lands and I’ve always had great results. Sometimes though even on a bolt action, that 15 thou off the lands will be too long for the rounds to fit inside the rifle. Had a couple older Ruger M77 tang safeties in 7x57 and 6.5x55 that 15 thou off the lands and the rounds were still way too long to fit inside the internal box mag. When that happens, I just seat them as long as I can where they’ll still in the gun.

 

[troy fairweather]

I can see it now, soon you will have a manbun with a beard and wear flannel even tho your not a lumberjack lol.

I agree .020 is a good place to start.

 

[brutus51]

other things will make bigger differences in group size

What are these other things of which you speak?
Great video thanks.

 

[brutus51]

I can see it now, soon you will have a manbun with a beard and wear flannel even tho your not a lumberjack lol.

Ain't got the beard cause it's summertime but since I'm a Yupper flannels are good for weddings, funerals and any other formal event.

 

[Olympus]

And for reference, I do something similar as the video that was posted but a little different. I take a fired piece of brass and I use a pair of plier to crimp the case mouth just enough to hold a bullet snuggly. I change the dummy bullet and close the bolt fully. I remove the dummy bullet and measure the overall length. Then I write that number down, I pull the bullet out again and do the same thing 4 more times. I average the 5 overall length measurements and I subtract 15 thou from that number.

 

[jmr40]

Some bullet/rifle/cartridge combos are sensitive to bullet jump. Some aren't, probably most. This isn't something I worry about. I load my cartridges to fit the magazine and have never had any problems finding a load that shoots well enough.

 

[Blue68f100]

I always start out what the mfg suggest. After all the work up is complete I test OAL then primers.

 

[Lennyjoe]

I did the video thing, then the marker thing in the past and finally purchased a Hornady OAL gauge and subsequent cartridge for my rifles. Now I can accurately measure with ease.

 

[jmorris]

It’s really for you to figure out. I have some firearms that don’t seem to care how far off the bullet is and others that won’t impress me until the bullet is seated deeper into the case as the round is chambered.

 

[sparkyv]

The hang up I had was that they usually wouldn't fit in the 6.5CM magazine. The same goes for my .223 RARP.

I start at 0.015 off the lands and I’ve always had great results.

 

[JFrank]

Not new to reloading rifles, I've done 30/06, 30/30, 45/70, 5.56 and 6.8 SPC in my almost 50 years of being in the hobby but now I've done went and got me one of those new fangled 6.5 Creedmoor's.
After doing a lot of research I've discovered the real deal sharpshooters seat their bullets to an overall length to the ogive. I never did this I just used the overall recommended by the mfg. but the ogive thing makes a lot of sense to me for bolt rifles, not so much for lever guns or semi's where overall lgth. is limited by the action type. So I went ahead and bought the Hornady setup for measuring along with the modified cases for 30/06 and 6.5.
And the big question is:
How far from the rifle lands do you start?
.020 is what I've seen as a good starting point but I'm wondering how close or far away did you find the sweet spot for your rifle? Gotta love this hobby.

Personally I jamb them and call that -0- from there I’ll run a rough charge test in .2 gr increments finding a node I’ll proceed to test for optimum seating depth at .003 increments then finally testing at .001 each side of the selected to observe the width of each window.
sorry that may be more than what you asked, my bad

 

[Walkalong]

What are these other things of which you speak?

Action, barrel, bullet choice, wind, shooter wobble,

I’ll run a rough charge test in .2 gr increments finding a node I’ll proceed to test for optimum seating depth at .003 increments then finally testing at .001 each side of the selected to observe the width of each window.

I never do less than .005 increments.

I firmly believe for most people/guns there is no need to chase seating depth, especially in less than .005 increments, until some other things are ironed out, especially if you are not chasing zeros or trying to hit 1 MOA targets at distance.

 

[JFrank]

Action, barrel, bullet choice, wind, shooter wobble,

I never do less than .005 increments.

I firmly believe for most people/guns there is no need to chase seating depth, especially in less than .005 increments, until some other things are ironed out, especially if you are not chasing zeros or trying to hit 1 MOA targets at distance.

Interesting, I would have guessed the opposite from ya.
Personally I believe that once I’m in the node seating is king.
Added- I suppose with a hunting I’m not as concerned with seating as long as the deer doesn’t complain

 

[Varminterror]

The recent publication of testing done by SAC is very interesting. I have not yet decided how I choose to reconcile it for myself, since I’m largely committed to NOT chasing lands when I can avoid it, so I start close and wind up long, and prove out that my bullet still tolerates the jump along the way. BUT... the principles seem sound, such I’d recommend it for anyone interested take a run through it.

 

[Walkalong]

Interesting, I would have guessed the opposite from ya.

I seated square into the lands with very light neck tension in 6PPC and it would shoot zeros if I did my part.

With 6 Dasher I started at .005 to .010 off the lands and it shot well, but I changed to .010 to .015 and it shot better. I really haven't tweaked that much, nothing I have tried has shot poorly.

The recent publication of testing done by SAC is very interesting.

Yes it is, and my .222 Mag sure liked Hornadys .040 or better off the lands.

 

[Varminterror]

I believe that once I’m in the node seating is king.

I’m prone to agree.

I struggle some with neglecting neck tension as nearly equally weighted - or even more valuable than seating depth - but I believe that’s a bias of my condition: I don’t have to shoot itty bitty groups as badly as I need to have consistent velocity at range.

 

[Walkalong]

I struggle some with neglecting neck tension

Now that is something I play with.

 

[Varminterror]

Now that is something I play with.

As do I - I wasn’t very clear in my post, multitasking during a corporate townhall meeting.... I meant to reflect that I spin myself pretty hard to compare seating depth and neck tension - and acknowledge I have two considerable biases in development which steer me away from practices which might actually be better for raw group size.

Predominantly, I’m shooting variable distance, long range - so neck tension and resulting velocity consistency are critical, and honestly, I’ve completely neglected any seating depth tuning in my last 3 match rifle barrels - they started 5-8thou off, and by the end of their life, they were somewhere around .1” off!!! But my 100 and 200yrd group sizes never reflected a change...

Regarding precision load development, I generally rank and relatively weight accordingly (open to advisement and education):

Bullet weight/length & barrel twist = 100
Powder charge node = 80
Seating depth = 20
Everything else (weight sorting, neck turning, primer selection, brass brand, etc) = 1 or less

But hypocritically, for precision rifle competition, I don’t live that life - I don’t worry about “pinnacle reloading,” where I try to squeeze tighter and tighter to milk the stone. Rather, I only really worry about “threshold reloading,” where I develop my load to exceed a minimum threshold (sub 1/2moa 3-5 shot groups and single digit SD’s). So honestly, for my last couple of barrels, I have not even tuned seating depth at all, only powder charge weight and neck tension - and not even really neck tension, since two of the 3 batches of brass I’ve bought have been the same, and I’m mandrel expanding - so really all I did was find a powder node.

 

[Walkalong]

As do I - I wasn’t very clear in my post,

I read it as you thinking neck tension is important.

so neck tension and resulting velocity consistency are critical,

Yes, and if neck tension is too light ES can suffer. We got good start pressures/burn in Benchrest with the bullet being into the lands, light neck tension, but being into the lands got us where we needed to be. With loading the 6 Dasher and the 6 Creed for PRS and jumping to the lands, even a short way, we need a certain amount of neck tension to get good ES?SD numbers. That demonstrated its self right away.

 

[JFrank]

y’all know measuring tension is a dog whistle don’t ya.
Nevertheless I’m in..
I have a new (to me) rifle coming dedicated to strictly 1k where I’ll be testing the dreaded NT issue until satisfying results appear.
So my question is- how many tensions are y’all running?

 

[brutus51]

Whoa you guys are way out of my league with this precision thing, I figured the ogive measuring thing was worth while to pursue but please explain the neck tension aspect and how you control it.

 

[JFrank]

I struggle with putting thought to text these days perhaps @Varminterror would step in with a detailed explanation
Here’s a link to a die manufacturer, click on the menu at the top left and select dies
www.lewilson.com