Was loading for the 257 Bob last night.
Decided to try a bunch of different bullets and lengths, because the darn gun wont shoot smaller than 3" groups at 100 yds.

Anyways the second bullets i loaded was 100 grain Barnes XLC's with the blue coating. Cases necks peeled a little of the coating off while the bullet was sliding down the neck, not a big deal though. The problem was when i started getting inconsistant seating depths. Thought my dies were loose. So i went a loaded some other bullets.

I found of the problems was some of blue coating was staying in the die. When i switched to Nosler Partitions, some of the blue coating that was left in the die would come out on the bullet. No wonder i was having consistancy issues.

Anyways, could get the coating out with a brush. Anybody else have this problem with XLCs? Anyway to get around this problem other than brushing out the die after every couple rounds? Kinda sucks, heard good things about XLCs, but it is obviously going to take more effort to load them.

I use a VLD type chamferer (Lyman makes an inexpensive one) that prevents the shavings.

The new triple shock bullet kind of makes the whole XLC thing moot..... JMO, Dutch.

http://precisionreloading.com/KMProducts.htm

I like the K&M case mouth reamer. Works like a dream!!..sakofan..

[ 10-27-2003, 22:12: Message edited by: sakofan ]

The XLC coating will come off just like a heavy coating of Moly would. After seating a batch of coated bullets, it is not a bad idea to clean the die.

I have had this problem also. Before I start to load with a die that was last used for xlc bullets I take a q-tip, run it around to see if there is any blue stuff left over from last time. If so I take the die apart, clean it and continue.