Are these things any good? They seem like they could make life a whole lot easier.

Opinions please.

[ 07-16-2002, 09:34: Message edited by: LazoG ]

Yes, works for me. fws

Absolutely. Then measure your seating depth to the ogive.

LazoG,

Sure, the Stony Point OAL gage works, but there is an easier and a lot less expensive way of doing the same thing.

To determine the maximum overall length of a cratridge, first, insert a full length cleaning rod with a flat tip (cut-off jag), from the muzzle so as to touch the bolt face. Place a piece of masking tape on the cleaning rod at the muzzle and with your pocket knife flat against the muzzle, make a cut in the masking tape. With a magic marker, mark over the knife indent and while it is still wet, wipe it off. This will leave a very fine dark line in the masking tape at the distance from the bolt face to the muzzle. Next, drop a bullet into the throat, hold it against the rifling with a short section of a rod or a pencil or whatever will keep it against the rifling. Then with the same cleaning rod with the flat tip, insert it into the muzzle and against the bullet tip. Again, with masking tape on the rod at the muzzle, make a small mark with the knife and do the same as before. Now measure the distance between the two knife marks on the rod and that is the MAXIMUM OVERALL CARTRIDGE LENGTH.

Now, with THAT bullet, load a dummy cartridge to that maximum overall length and then measure its overall length with a comparator. This last step is advisable because all bullets (eg. all Hornady 150 gr FBSP #3031) with exposed lead tips aren't the exact same length due to small deformations at the tip from handling or whatever. A method that is Cheap, Accurate, Repeatable.

Hope this helps,

Don Shearer

The best things about the Stoney Point Gage is it provides you with a repeatable, accurate measurement tool. This is important for monitoring throat erosion in addition to proper seating depths. With the SP gage in conjunction with a competition bullet seater, you can accurately load to the thousands of an inch.

[ 07-16-2002, 22:01: Message edited by: Zero Drift ]

Little secret to using that bad boy. Use a dow or something to give opposite resistence. It will increase your feel for where it hits the lands greatly instead of just pushing on a bullet. When I just pushed on a bullet from the guauge, my AOL wasn't consistent as when I used the wooded stick so I was jamming the bullet into the lands.

He's got a point. Thats why you want to send Stoney Point a fire formed case so this won't be a problem. The do charge 10 dollars a think to modify a fireformed case.

This is why I prefer the Sinclair OAL tools; they work with a fired case from the chamber being measured.

~Holmes

Well, shut my mouth and take my keyboard away. Stoney Point does discuss the variation in headspace issue, in their manual. The gauge is very easy to use, and I never did read the whole manual. I owe Stoney Point an apology.

By the way, Stoney Point's drilled-out 30-06 case is 0.001" longer than my fired 30-06 cases, so all the time I thought that my reloads put the bullet 0.010" off the lands, the bullets were really 0.009" off the lands. I have never bothered with the correction until now. I probably never will.

Stoney Point also makes a headspace that I didn't know about.

H. C.

get it, send em a shot case or three, and use it for every bullet. It's FAST and it's EASY. It's not PERFECT, but what is?
jeffe

If you get the automatic rifle version,,You can put it in your seating die and run the seat plunger in to get close to your seating depth in a hurry,really nice if you decide to load a couple of different weight bullets for the same caliber. If you're handy with a drill,and have a tap set you could make your own cases for it