Amp Bullet seating press

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hounddawg

New member
I have my flyer issues under control for my level of shooting, wind reading is the demon I need to slay at the moment so I won't be heading down that hole anytime soon

I still think this is one of the neatest toys I have seen offered in awhile. I can't see dropping the bucks on one of these, an AMP, and a laptop along with half a dozen different sizing mandrels just for curiosity's sake. If I were at the National level in LR benchrest it would be a different story, one would be in the mail. I can think of a dozen different experiments I would run with one of these
 
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pathdoc

New member
I think it's a very interesting research tool, and in the hands of the first adopters who know how to use it, it's going to answer a lot of questions about how various aspects of case preparation affect seating force.

The real question I have is how all of this translates to results downrange, and how easy or difficult it will be to sort out how changes in the seating force required to assemble dimensionally identical ammunition, without human and environmental (sun-glare, wind, rain etc.) variables masking the differences.

The biggest concern I have is knowing the variability, e.g. that graph with the two divergent seating-force curves. Trying to blind the shooter as to which two shots will be their "flyers" will be impossible if they assembled the ammunition themselves, and they will go into the session expecting those bullets to misbehave. The only way to sort that out will be with a fixed-mount barrel (preferably an instrumented pressure barrel with Chronograph capability) in a climate controlled indoor tunnel, to as long a distance as feasible.
 
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Unclenick

Staff
Some years ago I bought one of the Load Force instruments from Shootingsoftware.com. They don't seem to have it available currently, but the basic tool is a transducer that measures the force applied to the base of a case during seating. Some folks sorting by seating force claimed an advantage and others said they couldn't see it. I didn't see much initial difference and laziness set in and I didn't finish studying the idea. I should get it out again.

The AMP press needs the Wilson or other inline arbor press type dies. I don't own those, but German Salazar's tests showed they didn't outperform the Redding Competition Seating Die for finished round concentricity, and I have had great luck with that product and wouldn't switch to a press I couldn't use it with.
 
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hounddawg

New member
The biggest concern I have is knowing the variability, e.g. that graph with the two divergent seating-force curves. Trying to blind the shooter as to which two shots will be their "flyers" will be impossible if they assembled the ammunition themselves, and they will go into the session expecting those bullets to misbehave. .
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I have no clue as to what you are trying to say here


If I were to buy one the first thing I would do is load ten rounds. Just using some numbers as an example if 9 of those ten had fairly flat curves between 25 - 30 psi and the tenth spiked to 50 psi I would mark the case accordingly. Then the question is would that 50 psi group with the other nine or would the POI be high, low or to the side.

What I am waiting for is F Class John to do some real world tests to see how much variances in seating pressure make on the POI. If it turns out to be a significant amount I will consider buying one just for seating my match rounds.

I shot a match today and as far as my vertical POI went I was pleased with the results. After 60 shots my only 9's were on the horizontal not the vertical and to me indicates they were not a reloading problem, they were wind reading issues.

What I have proven to myself at least is having cases with differing amounts of work hardening will cause flyers. To me that does indicate that different neck tension can cause problems.
 
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pathdoc

New member
hounddawg said:
I have no clue as to what you are trying to say here
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What I am trying to say is that you will only get genuine results if the person shooting and the person loading are not the same person. Knowing you have a potential flyer in your ammo box is going to affect your frame of mind and the way you approach the shoot. The rounds need to be numbered, the shooter needs to NOT know which are the potential flyers, and the flyers correlated between loader and shooter AFTERWARDS.
 
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hounddawg

New member
gotcha,in other words the experiment needs to be done blind or preferably double blind to avoid "placebo" effect. I agree and had the same criticism on the test on AMPs website with the BR shooter shooting groups in a shooting tunnel.
 
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Unclenick

Staff
Yep. The late Harold Vaughn went to a lot of trouble to build and tune an integral machine rest gun for his tunnel shooting. It's the only way to truly isolate the ammo variables from human influence during firing.
 
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hounddawg

New member
if you seated just your bullets on one of these and knew there were no outliers as far as seating pressure there is a good chance your scores would go up just from the placebo effect. There have been studies where the test subjects were told they were taking a placebo drug and even when they knew it was a placebo they experienced a positive effect.

One of the things that competition has taught me is how much your mind and attitude has as a affect on your score. I see this every match not only with myself but with others. Having faith in your gear will put 2 more per target in the ten ring ;)
 
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pathdoc

New member
The irony is that the "potential flyers" these guys are getting on the AMP press are probably as good as or better than anything an amateur chump like me could load with my basic stuff at home. What might be really interesting is to have a program that tracks those flyers on the pressure-time curve and tells you "these flyers match the cartridges X and Y in batches A and B; group and shoot them together".

At the very least, users will be able to assemble a batch of loaded cartridges that they can use for sighting-in, e.g. if a scope has to be dismounted and swapped out. It's still representative enough of the load, even if it can't be relied on to group tightly with the rest of its batch-mates.
 
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hounddawg

New member
The irony is that the "potential flyers" these guys are getting on the AMP press are probably as good as or better than anything an amateur chump like me could load with my basic stuff at home.
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the irony is what separates the pros from the amauteur chump is not the quality ammo of the ammo ,it's the person doing the shooting and how they perform that determines where those bullets will land. A $1200 press and a $5000 scope won't help you read the wind or get a repeatable cheek weld consistently match after match

Everyone thinks they can shoot like the champs just becasue they and put the crosshair on the target and pull the trigger. You can buy the best golf equipment manufactured but unless you have the talent and the drive to practice chances are you won't be playing in the Masters next year. Same with shooting.
 
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Bart B.

New member
It's not the force needed to seat bullets that's important for accuracy.

It's the force needed to push it out of the case neck. Especially when the case mouth inside edge scrapes off jacket metal unbalancing the bullet before it is shot. How many folks round off that inside edge after deburring it?

In my tests, it takes a little less force to push bullets out.

Military small arms ammo has minimum bullet pull force specs. For example, 30 caliber service ammo's specs is 60 pounds minimum, match ammo is 20 pounds minimum. For every 13 psi pressure in the case, there's about 1 pound of force on a 30 caliber bullet.
 
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hounddawg

New member
It's not the force needed to seat bullets that's important for accuracy. It's the force needed to push it out of the case neck.
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don't you suppose there may be a correlation there

Especially when the case mouth inside edge scrapes off jacket metal unbalancing the bullet before it is shot. How many folks round off that inside edge after deburring it?
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it's called chamfering, and something I do every loading. I also use powdered graphite on every round

In my tests, it takes a little less force to push bullets out.
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did you use something like this?

https://www.tequipment.net/Mark-10/...ygnL4iNHxnqRRv0_IdB_rPZ0d-aJDTO0aAlJPEALw_wcB

to me this would be the minimum for getting accurate results in a push/pull test
 
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Bart B.

New member
I used a cheap simpler pull test accurate and repeatable to a 1 pound spread. Inverted shell holder and weighted collet type bullet puller.

Never measured seating force..
 
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pathdoc

New member
hounddawg said:
the irony is what separates the pros from the amauteur chump is not the quality ammo of the ammo ,it's the person doing the shooting and how they perform that determines where those bullets will land. A $1200 press and a $5000 scope won't help you read the wind or get a repeatable cheek weld consistently match after match
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Oh for sure, but I'm considering the hypothetical case of the best shooter (or the best bench-clamped pressure barrel in an instrumented tunnel) delivering the shots. I know for sure and will freely admit that I could take Erik Cortina's gun and ammo and make a fool of myself while he could take mine and make me look like that fool. :D
 
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hounddawg

New member
Oh for sure, but I'm considering the hypothetical case of the best shooter (or the best bench-clamped pressure barrel in an instrumented tunnel) delivering the shots.
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Go out and shoot in some club matches and you will see what I mean. There will be two or three guys always taking home the medals. I saw a guy at my last match shoot a 200 14X target with a completely stock .308 FTR Savage with department store optics. He beat a lot of guys shooting $10K custom rigs. He won his class, that was his third match ever. He told me he loaded his ammo on a Hornady single stage, weighed powder on a Chargemaster. Some guys can just read the wind and have a good technique, you can't buy that

edit - just a disclaimer I am a middle of the pack guy, for me 5th place is a good match. I just compete for fun and don't expect to ever see my name in a record book or standing on the stage at Perry
 
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