SmallCaliberCentral

Hi guys,


What method do you guys use for finding the distance to the lands? Ive only gone off the book OAL for my hornet before ?

And when Load developing should you find you OCW first before tweaking the OAL or the other way round?

Cheers guys


Steve.

I use the Hornady OAL gauge to find the distance to the lands or a modified unfired case with a slit made in the neck if a modified case is not available, ie, 223AI. Start with the OCW then tweek the seating depth.

Tom

I will load a dummy round and smoke the bullet, slowly chamber the round and remove it. By playing with bullet depth and/or allowing the bullet to just start touching the rifling. Bill K

I use the old Stoney Point Comparator tool, now it's made by Hornady....about the best method I've ever come across. Accurate to within .001".

I always pick an arbitrary seating depth based on past experience, find THE load, then start dinking about with seating depth. Doing it the other way around will cost you MANY bullets and LOTS of powder in the long run. JMO

I also use Hornadys OAL tool. I love it--buy one. You will have to buy the modified case for your specific caliber to go with the tool. Well worth the money IMO.

If you do go with the Hornady comparator and a modified casing, I would highly recommend using fired brass from your rifle to make the modified casing from. I don't have the tools to make my own, so I sent a couple casings into Hornady and they made the casin for me. If you don't do this, then the headspace on the modified casing may not be right for your chamber.

Silverfox wrote:If you do go with the Hornady comparator and a modified casing, I would highly recommend using fired brass from your rifle to make the modified casing from. I don't have the tools to make my own, so I sent a couple casings into Hornady and they made the casin for me. If you don't do this, then the headspace on the modified casing may not be right for your chamber.

You can measure one of your FF cases to the shoulder and do the same with the Hornady modded case and use the difference as a "length adjustment" factor. I used a .28 cal insert in the comparator and found my FF brass is 0.005" longer to the shoulder than the modded Hornady case. So whenever I measure a chamber with the Hornady case, I add 0.005" to that to get my "true" headspace measurement.