stagpanther
New member
I'm not talking about jump to lands strictly speaking, though it's probably related to some degree.
Runout of loaded rounds
- Thread starter Nathan
- Start date
Stag, unfortunately I can not answer that question for you. But if everything is concentric to start with, It shouldnt matter. Concentricity is basically eliminating a variable.
Its going to effect more with barrel harmonics than anything. Theres a reason manuals have specific COL with specific bullets.
I had to admit to myself that hornady, sierra know alot more than I did about overall lengths so i stick with those now.
Its going to effect more with barrel harmonics than anything. Theres a reason manuals have specific COL with specific bullets.
I had to admit to myself that hornady, sierra know alot more than I did about overall lengths so i stick with those now.
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Jet, I just removed the expander ball completely from my lee FLS die, I then use the lee collet die to size the neck since its using a mandrel it wont pull the neck off axis. It made it almost perfectly concentric. I anneal after every firing so not worried so much about case life but man it was eye opening how bad the expander ball can be.
jetinteriorguy
New member
While I have no doubt that works, the advantage to using the Redding body die is that it doesn’t work the neck, it’s only sized by the collet die. This will yield much better brass life IMO. The regular sizing die does size the neck down and your just sizing it back up with the mandrel so basically your just replacing the expander ball with the mandrel while unnecessarily working the neck. How much difference this makes, who knows, perhaps not enough to be much of a factor, especially since in your case you anneal after every firing.
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I wore out several Garand barrels shooting on the USN rifle team. Each one lasted about 3500 rounds.
New cases always shot most accurate. None of the military teams reloaded their fired cases. Fired case heads were not square and the barrel whipped different before bullet exit depending on the case orientation in the chamber.
New cases always shot most accurate. None of the military teams reloaded their fired cases. Fired case heads were not square and the barrel whipped different before bullet exit depending on the case orientation in the chamber.
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stagpanther
New member
I'm kinda interested if anyone has ever gotten truly outstanding results with the hornady a-tips (I assume that is what the OP is talking about); I bought a bunch (expensive) in 6.5 and 6 mm and could never get as good results as I could with hornady's eld's.
What is the biggest group's size?
Bart B,
Define wore out? Did you change the barrel after you lost a certain amount of accuracy due to throat erosion ? lets say from shooting half moa and they opened up to 1 moa?
I have found you are 100% correct about fired cases from an M1 are not as accurate as virgin brass. I could never get my groups as good from fired cases as I could from new brass. One experiment I have yet to test is too shoot the fired cases from a bolt gun too see if they square cases back up.
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When a barrel is shot out, you start getting uncalled fliers that become more and more frequent if you keep shooting it. I had this experience for the first time in an M1A. I was frequently cleaning the slow fire targets at our local 100-yard reduced target matches for which we fired two ten-shot targets to be sure we could find every hole. One day I was shooting the first half of that set, putting in 10s and Xs, when I had an 11:00 nine. Normally, If I screw up I get something around 4:00 or 5:00, but I figured I must have done something wrong and cleaned the rest of that target and the next target. The next time, though, I had the same thing. Then a few matches later I had three. Only when I got to four fliers per match, did I finally say "duhh" and add up my round records and see I was at over 3500 rounds. About time for a chrome-moly steel barrel.
In effect, given the fliers were all in the same place, my gun had developed two group centers. I concluded this was likele due to asymmetric throat erosion that caused some bullets to tip the same direction in the bore, throwing them high and left.
Regarding brass accuracy, this can vary some by gun. The Garand and M14/M1A bolts arc up into final position. It's not a mechanism conducive to having the bolt face land perfectly perpendicular to the bore axis. As a result, it tends to eject cases with a slight tilt on the head. If you fire loads warm or have timing off, the extractor can also bend the rim down a little. Either situation causes one side of the reloaded case's head hits the bolt face first. As Harold Vaughn showed, this can cause an off-axis recoil moment that deflects the point of the muzzle just enough to widen groups.
I got lucky and my M1A ejects cases that are square at the head. So does my Garand after careful, light bolt lug lapping with an alignment tool I made myself. The Garand Gear gas cylinder plug or a vented gas plug lowers initial op-rod acceleration to minimize rim bending. The combination gives me cases dimensionally true enough to reload them without producing a detectable accuracy difference. But it does involve some extra gunsmithing bother to go to.
In effect, given the fliers were all in the same place, my gun had developed two group centers. I concluded this was likele due to asymmetric throat erosion that caused some bullets to tip the same direction in the bore, throwing them high and left.
Regarding brass accuracy, this can vary some by gun. The Garand and M14/M1A bolts arc up into final position. It's not a mechanism conducive to having the bolt face land perfectly perpendicular to the bore axis. As a result, it tends to eject cases with a slight tilt on the head. If you fire loads warm or have timing off, the extractor can also bend the rim down a little. Either situation causes one side of the reloaded case's head hits the bolt face first. As Harold Vaughn showed, this can cause an off-axis recoil moment that deflects the point of the muzzle just enough to widen groups.
I got lucky and my M1A ejects cases that are square at the head. So does my Garand after careful, light bolt lug lapping with an alignment tool I made myself. The Garand Gear gas cylinder plug or a vented gas plug lowers initial op-rod acceleration to minimize rim bending. The combination gives me cases dimensionally true enough to reload them without producing a detectable accuracy difference. But it does involve some extra gunsmithing bother to go to.