I have progressed (or regressed ) in my reloading over the years, but I have a question about seating bullets. I have the stoney point comparator and in the past I have tried to get all of my cartridges to the same length as measured by the ogive. I have noticed, as all of you have, that the difference in the length of the bullets from the base to the ogive is usually off by a variance of +/- .005. Do you guy's worry about this, or am I barking up the wrong tree. Will it make any difference in my hunting loads if I just set the die and start seating as opposed to backing my seating stem off before I seat each one and adjusting down until I am right on or at least within .001 of either side of my measured length.

Bottom line is, am I wasting my time, or should I try to get all of them exactly the same?

Thanks for your help.

You are wasting your time...

quote:

I have noticed, as all of you have, that the difference in the length of the bullets from the base to the ogive is usually off by a variance of +/- .005. Do you guy's worry about this, or am I barking up the wrong tree.

I haven`t checked the bullet base to ogive lenght in years. I do however use the Stoney Point to set my die to seat a bullet at a set lenght from case base to ogive.

The couple thousanths variance in bullet base to ogive means nothing I could ever determine in hunting ammo. The distance the ogive sets off the lands means alot in most cases.

If you find you`re getting a .005" variation from "case" base to ogive there is something wrong with your tecnique. I rarely get +/- .001 variance let alone any more then that.

I need to clarify. My measurement is from case base to ogive as measured by the stoney point comparator attached to the calipers. I do on occassion get a reading .005 off the average. I think it must be my techinique because the common sense part of my brain says that if I set my die to seat a certain depth, then the only way the case to ogive measurement would change from cartridge to cartridge would be if the ogive on the bullets varied. This doesn't seem likely.

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong with my "techinique"?

Just a thought.
I`ve had a seating die, can`t remember if it was RCBS or Redding that the plastic tipped bullets would occasionally seat off the tip of. The Ballistic tip and SSTs have a long sharp point that sometimes hits the seater before the bullet sets deep enough to seat of the ogive. This could be your problem if you`re useing this type of bullet when you notice the variations.

I will have to check into that. I am seating .308 caliber 200 grain accubonds, so this could be the problem. I am using Redding Dies.

Am I correct in assuming (if the above is not the case) that once I set the die that my case base to ogive measurement should be very, very close (+/-.001) on a given box of bullets?

Thanks again.