Hi Folks,Im new to reloading and would appreciate your input to a question. But first tell you know where Im at.

Been following your excellent site for about six months, plowing through your back pages,I registered a month ago. Ive posted a couple of times on subjects within my comfort zone.

I started my reloading apprenticeship by watching a pal who has been reloading (mostly black powder) for a lot of years. On this day he was working a load for his Full Bore Rifle in .243, which he knew I had as well. He offered to let me help,think that was a ploy,I did,and now Im hooked.

The load he put together for the range included ;Berger fmj bullet heads 88gr CCI 200 large rifle primers, Hodgdon H4895 starting at 33gr working up to 36gr in .50gr steps. Settled on the 34gr for best groups and performance ect.

That was 4 months back and now I get to the question.I want to load if possible, a bullet for hunting Deer, that is close to the Norma 100gr sp(that works well in my CZBrno) and an equivalent bullet in fmj that I can try out on the range, where sp bullets are not allowed.

Are there two bullet heads with similar characteristics that I can compare in the two different settings? Ive tried the Hornady Interlock 100gr sp with good groups which could fit the bill for hunting, but when I seat them .030" off the lands the crimp cannelure is about .100" forward of the brass (Noma fire formed).Appreciate your help with this question and a few more in the future. thanks, jc

quote:

Originally posted by John Chalmers:
...but when I seat them .030" off the lands the crimp cannelure is about .100" forward of the brass

Forget the cannelure. As long as your bullet seats safely into the case neck (no movement of seated bullet when you press it against the side of a table, say) you are good to go. If your rifle likes the a seating depth of .03" off the lands, load, shoot and be happy.

The above said assuming you don't seat with a crimp. If you do, turn out your seating die and stop crimping, you won't need that for a bolt action rifle - in particular one in .243.

Also, if you like to quantify how far off the lands you are, be aware that bullet ogives vary a lot. It can be advantageous to measure OACL with a bullet comparator off the ogive - as opposed to measuring off the tip of the bullet.

- mike

Unless you are going to crimp them do not wory about the cannelure seat them where they shoot the best

mho Thanks for that. I used a bullet comparator to measure the length and keep a dummy round to set the bullet seater. (Thanks to previous info gathered on AR) jc

p dog shooter,Thank you,No I dont crimp,reduced the Lee de-capper stem by .002" which gives the bullet a firm hold. (Once again thanks to info on AR threads).jc

Berger 24528 105 grain VLD hunting maybe? I think that will meet both needs. Berger jacket thickness changes between lines to meet the needs of the bullet, thiner for hunting to break up, thicker on target bullets. Balistically they are near interchangeable.

Sam, Once again a big thanks The berger bullet sounds promising I'll try and track them down.jc

Hi John,

Welcome to AR.

In terms of bullets the best idea might be t check what your local reloading guy has in stock and get back to us.

In general and especially considering the fact that you'll be shooting stags I wouldn't worry so much about the weight but the construction.

What I mean is that if your man has a choice between 105 Bergers or 90 grain partitions; or 100grain hornady SSTs vs 100gr Interlocks, then the tougher bullet should win out rather than focusing solely on weight.

Those 100 grain Hornady Interlock flat bases are very good bullets, tougher than the boat tail design.

Don't worry about B.C. or absolute accuracy with hunting bullets, if you can get them to group an inch, inch and a half they'll kill deer out as far as you'll want to shoot them.

Ghubert, Thanks for that. Good advice.
The Berger bullet already mentioned is not readily available and has to be ordered specially. I'll check out whats in stock and get back.jc