Hey fellas,

I just purchased one of these devices and find it pretty straight forward to use, however, I have one question. Am I to assume that when I fire a round in my rifle (22-250, Savage) the fired brass is the size of the chamber? So do I just bump the shoulder back about .002 to achieve proper headspace? Also, If anyone has any useful tips for using this piece of equipment I would be very interested. Thanks a lot

The fired brass will be close but because of the elasticity of brass it will not be exact.
An annealed case that is neck sized and fired several times in the same chamber may for all practical purposes be the same length as the chamber.

My only suggestion is that you always zero your calipers with the gauge installed. After you remove the gauge re-zero the calipers.

I use it for measuring case head to datum length that I am sizing or forming. With the bullet diameter adapters you can also measure bullets from base to ogive.

What I have found with mine is that it is a good idea to remove the primer before measuring as it can back out a bit on the first firing.
Also, as noted above, I've found that on the first firing virgin brass (with a stiff load) will be about .002" short because of spring back of it's full growth. With mild loads or factory it may not even grow quite that much.
If I had to make a recomendation I'd say set your die to size the brass to about what you find the length to be on the first firing. Then on the second see if it grows just slightly. You proabably won't have to reset the die as about .002 set back is good.
Your can check your brass for ez chambering...as soon as you find one that has slight bolt tension you've found a piece that matches the chamber length and want to back down from there. Clear as mud aren't I?

The first thing you should do after depriming is to try the fired case in your chamber. What you are looking for is a "crush fit" or the bolt being harder to close than normal. If you do not have any resistance then you will be fine just neck sizing and you do not need to push the shoulder back. If you have a crush fit then you need to push the shoulder back as little as possible to relieve the crush fit. That will work your brass the least.

As far as your question about a case being chamber size after one firing, the answer is no. It usually takes a few firings for the case to fully expand. For instance on my 22-250 using Nosler brass and neck sizing only the measurements were;

new case - 1.577" (subtracting the 2" that the attachement adds)
once fired - 1.586"
twice fired - 1.587" (slight crush fit)
3 times fired - 1.5875 (crush fit)

at this time I use the Redding Body Die to push back the shoulder to 1.5865".

The only exception to this is that if you full length size so that you size any part of the case body, even if you don't push the shoulder back, the sizing of the case body will push the shoulder forward a thousanth or two and shorten the expansion process. However, I have never seen a rifle where sizing the case body after the first firing will push the shoulder far enough to create a crush fit.

quote:

Originally posted by David Antonucci:
...I just purchased one of these devices and find it pretty straight forward to use

quote:

... If anyone has any useful tips for using this piece of equipment I would be very interested. ...

1. Drink a lot of Liquid Corn before using it. Then you can blame all the continually inconsistent readings on the Liquor.
2. Take as many repeat readings of the same spot as you can stand, see how much they vary, and eventually you will reach a point where you realize you have been hoodooed out of money you could have spent on Bullets or Powder.
3. Find comfort in the fact that the only thing you accomplished was to "Stimulate the Economy" slightly at Hornady.
4. P-FLR your Cases if you are using a Bolt Action and not Hunting in Dangerous Game country. Begin using the always-dependable, never-fail, time-proven OCL to ODL conversion.
5. Give the "Thingy" to someone you really dislike.

Happy New Year

Hey HC

Running out of pressure wars elsewhere so you just had to interrupt our little Stoney Point lovefest, huh?

What you don't realize is that the one you tried which was the OAL gauge is not what we're talking about. There is absolutely no way to get varying readings with the gauge unless it is measuring actual variations in the case shoulder



Now the OAL gauge does have a learning curve (which you obviously did not complete fully! )

Thanks for the help guys....not Hotcore..haha

David, don't worry too much about Hot Core. He is a knowledgable guy, but he intensely dislikes certain techniques - the Stoney Point (now Hornady) Head Space Gauge being one of them. I personally think he lets his strong dislike get in the way of an objective view of the tool. But, hey, he likes his ways of doing things, others like other ways.

Just to demonstrate the adversity of Hot Core to the Head Space Gauge, you can read a couple of the replies to this thread - just for laughs.

http://forums.accuratereloadin...=553100957#553100957

- mike

Can't understand the rant he has on that tool either. I have no problem using it.....I consider it a very valuable asset on my bench. Mine is very consistant for me.

quote:

... If anyone has any useful tips for using this piece of equipment I would be very interested. ...

Hey David, I must have read that wrong and thought you were serious.

HC has little use for tooling he can`t readily calibrate. The idea that his measurement from his chamber and your measurement from yours likely don`t match means one is wrong and gage/caliper/user tolerance stack is the fault, and can`t be standardized.

Hot Core.
Give we Stoney Point/Hornady thingy users a little slack.
If you can reliably measure case head expansion to .0001" accuracy, we should be able to stumble through accurate measurements to .001" tolerance.
Just because it is not your way doesn't make my way wrong. Just different. Right?

muck

I see a lot of all through this thread. I happen to like my Stoney Point thingy too.

quote:

Originally posted by muck:
Hot Core.
If you can reliably measure case head expansion to .0001" accuracy, we should be able to stumble through accurate measurements to .001"

Thanks for saying what I've been thinking all along.

I think whoever made up the adage about not being able to teach old dogs new tricks had Hot Core in mind. I have never read a more stubborn old coot on the net. And that's coming from a pretty old coot myself.

quote:

Originally posted by muck:
..Just because it is not your way doesn't make my way wrong. Just different. Right?

Right - maybe!

This tool.....

If one takes a reading immediately after firing the case and then takes another readin after FL resizing he has a handle on how much difference there is in his FL die and rifle's chamber.

One could then shim the bottom to the FL die to dramatically reduce brass working and still get the benefits of FL resizing.

If ther difference is large.....say over .020 then you really need to make a decision about the rifle and some smithing work!

I've actually seen some differences much larger than that....