how much does being able to get close to the lands with bullet seating help with accuracy?? all of my rifles have really long throats, on most I can't get to less than .2 or so off the lands.

Lots of opinions here.....
IMO if accuracy was measured with a 12" ruler we'd find that 10" of it was finding the bullet that fit the barrel the best. 1" of it in finding the right powder for the barrel and the last inch is made up of everything else......this is assuming a properly built and bedded barreled action.

Why people insist on their hunting rifles to shoot 1/2" groups is beyond me. I'd like my varmint rifles to do that but could care less if my .30-06 or .35 whelen will do it. 1 1/4" will suit me fine.

When it comes to seating to the lands IMO we're often grasping at straws....Weatherby free bores have been quite accurate and we don't hear anyone complaining about seating to the lands.

My chamber reamer for the 9.3 X 62 has such long freebore that I'll not be able to seat to w/n a half inch of the lands.....and I'm not at all concerned with it.

Persoanlly, I think we need to think of our big game and dangerous game rifles as very different from out varmint and target rifles. Loading to the lands just isn't a large factor here.

Most of my own wildcats are set up so my normal bullet is just off the lands and still fit in the magazine. I have numerous rifles that the bullet would almost fall out before it gets to the lands that still shoot great.

For a normal hunting rifle I've not seen it make a lot if difference.

The idea is to get the bullet into the bore as straight as possible so it doesn't wobble to the target. Long throats are fine if the throat diameter is tight enough to guide the bullet straight into the bore.

With a sloppy throat, you reduce the risk of the bullet entering the bore off center if you reduce the distance the bullet has to travel to the lands.

VD, why does a varmint deserve a cleaner kill than a big game animal? I would think as an ethical hunter, you would want all your rifles to be as accurate as possible in order to reduce the risk of wounding an animal and having it get away. Just curious.

quote:

VD, why does a varmint deserve a cleaner kill than a big game animal? I would think as an ethical hunter, you would want all your rifles to be as accurate as possible in order to reduce the risk of wounding an animal and having it get away.

At least my varmint rifles are often shot from a portable bench and at much longer distances than I'd shoot at big game. Further varmints are usually 1/10th the size of big game.

For this reason I can make use of the better accuracy. When big game hunting I never get such a rest and rarely shoot over 250 yards.

I've never felt handicapped with a 30-06 that shot only 1 1/4" groups but I'd sure not want to take my 22-250 "dog shootin" if that was the best it could do!

Hello Cowboy,

The value to being able to get close to the lands is that it gives you more opportunity to find the sweet spot seating depth measured from the ogive.

do the rifles shoot within your desired accuracy levels?

*I* believe that CONSISTANT oal means more than if the bullet is sometimes touching the lands or not.

Back when "small bore" ment anything under 45cal, your only powder choice was black, bullets were made out of pure lead, throats were cut at 10-15deg/side and paper patching was considered "high tech"......seating near/to the lands had a lot of things going for it.
Since the advent of smokeless powders, GM jacketed bullets, 0-1.5deg/side throats the importance of seating near/to the lands has gone away.

I have found the relationship of the bullet to the lands to be one of the key ingrdients to making accurate ammo. Talk to BR shooters and ask them their opinion of "jumping bullets." To a man, every one I have spoken to found it to be critical as well.

BUT...I am with Vapo and cncentrate on getting the bullet I want to use on game to shoot decent groups and do not go searching for the ultimate in accuracy. I know a lot of folks who hunt with the most accurate bullet regardless of how well it performs on game. Oh sure, at times I will load up some ammo to use only at the bench just for grins, but I rarely do that. Do to some physical issues my bench time is limited, so I just concentrate on a good performing bullet and leave it at that. But to get the most out of the game bullets, I usually have them loaded pretty close to the lands.

BTW-I cut all of my throats seperately from the chamber and do not own a reamer with a throat on it. I ask the person for a dummy round from the longest load they will use and throat for that. I have found that practice to have a profound effect on how well a rifle shoots.

As I stated I do the same as Marc on the rifles that I chamber or have chambered. Set the chamber up for the intended bullet.

I will also admit to buring 100s maybe 1000s of bullets, powder and primers playing with distance off the lands. In some cases it can make a small difference. Others I saw no measureable change. I have never seen it change a 1.5" group to a .75". Maybe .1" improvement. While that would be alot for the BR shooter and maybe the long range varmint rifle for my normal hunting rifle I could really care less if the rifle shots a 1" or a .9" group. If my hunting rifles will do MOA I'm happy. Playing with loads does me far less good than spending the same time and $$ practicing at different ranges with the load of choice.

On my hunting rifles I seat the bullet the longest the magazine will allow. Bullet, powder, powder charge and primer is all I worry about anymore. That is more than enough.

quote:

Originally posted by Marc_Stokeld:
I have found the relationship of the bullet to the lands to be one of the key ingrdients to making accurate ammo. Talk to BR shooters and ask them their opinion of "jumping bullets." To a man, every one I have spoken to found it to be critical as well.

BR shooters are the worst at believing in voodoo and old wives tails. Tell them your seceret to shooting high scores is "spanking the monkey" before stepping to the line, and they will have to quadruple the number of porta potties at the next shoot (and than D.Tubbs will start selling his special fur lined "spanking glove", that everyone will run out and buy by the dozen)

quote:

BR shooters are the worst at believing in voodoo and old wives tails.

Some do but some also shoot the most accurate rifles on earth.

Ireload
No doubt, and the guys driving them arn't real shabby either. A lot of what they do are also self fafilling(sp) proficies IE: they believe in seating into the lands, therefore they only seat into the lands and tune the load to shoot with the bullet seated into the lands, there for they believe they need to seat into the lands (circular argument)

TG,
Is a tight neck chamber a circular argument?
Because they all do that too.

It's round, therefore it must be circular

Mimimum radial clearances (from the neck to the base) insure alignment with the bore, and that's one theory that I don't have any argument with.

On my varmint and target guns I measure the throat length to .001".

On big game rifles, I don't know how far I'm jumping to the lands because I've never measured them.

At least Westpac heard of throat diameter ! I wonder how I could get any kind of accuracy at all out of my 6.5x55 with a 140 when it's throated for the very long 160 ???

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
At least Westpac heard of throat diameter !

Can't remember where, but I read about it somewheres.

The reason BR shooters often seat into the lands or touching the lands is not related to bullet alignment which, with proper ammunition, is perfect any way, but to increase initial pressure and minimize variations. If seating a bullet into the lands eliminates .050" of vertical, it's effective.
As far as hunting accuracy is concerned, throat length and even throat configuration is comparatively unimportant. Concentricity is important regardless of the intended purpose of the rifle. Regards, Bill.

I get tired of hearing all this crap about hunting accuracy and why does a hunting rifle need to shoot .5 MOA, a 2 moa rifle will harvest game just as well, why not eliminate every possible variable you can, horsesense tells me that the goal is to get every bullet at least started down the barrel as strait as possible, it would seem to me that haveing the bullet start out closer to the rifling would help accomplish this, because it helps make up for any runout that exists with the handload and also any slight offness of the chamber.

I agree with you cowboy. That is the entire reason for owning a rifle.

quote:

The idea is to get the bullet into the bore as straight as possible so it doesn't wobble to the target. Long throats are fine if the throat diameter is tight enough to guide the bullet straight into the bore.

That's what I was going to say! I have two Rugers in 7X57mm, a No. 1A and an M77. Both have very long throats, and both are very accurate. So I guess their throat diameters must be close to groove, so the bullets enter the rifling straight. I never slugged the throats to see, however!

Yet, I still prefer to seat a bullet close to the rifling if possible, and am willing to sacrifice any slight velocity advantage gotten from the "freebore effect" in favor of accurate shooting.

In the overall scheme of the accuracy thing, seating depth is important. But, it's just one of the factors to address in the quest of good accuracy.

I shot centerfire benchrest competitively, and did much experimenting on my bench rifles to see what seating depth worked best for each of those rifle. I don't remember the exact distances from the lands for those rifles now, but I can say that all, except one rifle, shot best with a small space between the bullet and the lands. My 6x47 shot best with the bullet jammed up against the lands, hard. The others were within .010 from the lands, and shot groups good enough to win matches. The winning part was up to me.

For all my rifles now, I seat bullets so they are exactly .010 from the lands, and if that's too long to fit the magazine, I seat them so they do fit the magazine. I don't do any experimenting between .010 and tight up against the lands. Why, because .010 seems to work for me, and it always has, since 1948 when I first started reloading. That is what my Step Dad used back then, so that is what I use now. It works.

The last seven rifles I developed loads for over the last three years all shot very well. My 284 Win and 7 mm Mag shoot three shots into 1/2" groups at 100 yards. The 222, 223, 22 BR and 250 Savage shot three shots into 3/8" groups at 100. My 22-250, my most accurate sporter, shot three shots into 1/4" groups at 100. All of these with bullets seated as I mentioned above. Some of my sporters I only shoot single shot, even though the rifles do have magazines. I want the best accuracy, and that comes with bullets seated further out. These are the varmint rifles.

Was that accuracy attributed to seating depth alone? NO. Lots of other things in the rifle, scope and loads contributed; like I seat all of my bullets with Wilson seaters, or custom made seaters similar, straight line ones to control concentricity and bullet alignment. Good triggers, good barrels, good bedding, good scopes, and good rests at the bench, along with focused technique when shooting are in the equation.

I always consider the question, what's good enough accuracy for the particular rifle? For the two 7mm rifles, 1/2" is good enough for me. Maybe I could develop better loads for them. I doubt that I'll try. For the varmint rifles, I went all the way to get the very best accuracy I could from these rifles. They are all sporters, not heavy benchrest rifles.

Oh, and I do trigger jobs on all rifles. That's important to me, to have great triggers. And, for load development I use a Leupold 36x Benchrest Scope, then change out to a hunting scope later, after I find the best load.

Don

Until a couple of years ago all I had were your standard American variety of cartridges, 22/250's, 30/06's, .284 Win, .257 Rob, .338 Win Mag etc. all of which I am able to seat to the lands and play with various seating depths. Then I got a couple of metric's like a 6.5x55 and a 9.3x62. Both of these have very long throats and honestly I have no chance of making contact with the lands when seating a bullet, however accuracy (for a hunting rifle) is very acceptable and the 6.5 has a dark bore to boot. I have a 375H&H that I can't get to the lands either because of magazine box limitations but it is a .5" shooter with 300 grain bullets.
See the attached examples of not being able to seat to the lands:

Snellstrom, that 6.5x55 load must be one of the 'new ' loadings.My 46 gr 4350 with 140 clocks at 2750.I made up my gun years ago in gunsmithing school on a M98 and the first time on the range with factory loads ,iron sights got 7/8" groups ! Finn AAgaard said it's the perfect deer cartridge. I agree though only if original loadings are used.

I still shoot benchrest. I use seating depth as the last thing when tuning a barrel. Some barrels like it hard into the lands and some like a jump. A different powder might ask for a change in seating depth. I don't pay near as much attention to it in my hunting rifles. I think only accurate rifles are fun, but if my hunting rifles shoot 1 MOA every time, I will not mess with it.
Butch

as a side note i have a ruger sporter in 22-250 that as most of you know can't even get close the lands, the strange thing is it seems to shoot the best with all bullet and power combos at a certain seating depth for all combos, I have messed with it, and seems to keep coming back to the exact same depth that seems to work, be it with bergers, vmaxs, cheapo hornadys, cheapo speers, h380, RL15 whatever

Butch-

When you say "jump" how much are you talking about in your context?

I never have a jam fit but rather always back off .010-.025" from the lands.

But this thread started out with peoplle talking about jumpind bullets .200" or so off the lands. What have you seen in your career between shooters who jumped .010 vs. people who jumped over .200"?

Personaly, and I am only speaking from my personal experience and what I have witnessed others do with my own eyes, loads that have the bullet around .010" off the lands are as a whole more accurate that loads that have the bullet .200" off the lands.

Marc,
You are correct .010-.020. on my BR rifle. That is with the Kreiger barrel and the Shilen is jammed. I do jump the recomended amount on my Barnes triple shock hunting bullets.
Next time I am at the range, I will jump my BR bullets alot and see what happens.
Butch

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:
Marc,
You are correct .010-.020. on my BR rifle. That is with the Kreiger barrel and the Shilen is jammed. I do jump the recomended amount on my Barnes triple shock hunting bullets.
Next time I am at the range, I will jump my BR bullets alot and see what happens.
Butch

That probably won't tell much. Your BR rifles throat is a little tighter and more concentric than a typical hunting rifle.

Just to pick up on VDs post and thoughts--I am in agreement. The important thing to know with a hunting rifle is where the first bullet will hit out of a fouled barrel and if necessary where does the second bullet hit with resprct to the first.1 1/2" isn't bad considering the adrenelin flow will account for more.

In thinking about it ,I can not remember ever killing a deer with a second or third shot. So to me MOA GROUPS with hunting rifles have little meaning at all. roger

Westpac,
Br rifles can be sensitive to small changes in seating depth. When you are talking about the last .010-.020 in accuracy, you make the changes that work. I agree with bartsche in that I have only had 2 chances to shoot a deer with an extra shot in my lifetime.
Butch