How deep to seat bullets into neck?

[andym79]

Hi guys, most of my experience except the 6.5x55 has been with cartridges that were originally intended to be used with cast bullets and have either long necks or are straight or tapered and generally do not reuire GC as they are conducive to lower velocities.

In a more modern bottle neck case that has a shorter neck say .25" instead of .4-.5", if a bullet design necissitates a seating depth of .45" am I right in thinking that seating the bullet below the neck junction is not ideal in either a PB or GC bullet as it makes damage to the exposed part of the bullet more likely!

What I am asking is idealy for cast bullets would you seat bullets to the base of the neck and no deeper?

So do you want to look for a bullet design that is seated further out, look for a case with a longer neck or just seat the bullet to the require depth and try and find a load with the least pressure that will get you to the velocity that you want and hope the side of the bullet and the gas check being exposed to lateral pressure and heat (gas cutting) as well as rearward pressure doesn't affect accuracy too much?

In short how much might a bullet seated below the neck be damaged?

[runfiverun]

I don't mind if just the gas check is down there.
but I do have one slow velocity load where I seat long and let the act of chambering the round push the plain base boolit deeper into the case and it shoots pretty darn well.
if I had to do it on some of my others I would start using a filler to help mitigate some of the problems.

if I was designing or looking for a new mold I would for sure keep the base in the neck or the gas check at most slightly poking out the bottom.
you do have area in front of the case mouth that is at least boolit diameter large if not larger and you can take advantage of that area to add in more drive band length.
you need to be cognitive of where your cog is on the boolit and if it's too far forward your gonna lose accuracy.

[andym79]

Any more opinions please guys!

[Mk42gunner]

Most of my short necked bottle neck loading experience is for the .308 Winchester. With it as long as the boolit is securely in the neck, I don't try to seat it deeper. I have two .308 rifles, actually 7.62mm NATO, a 2A1 Ishapore and a Mauser with a Parker Hale take off barrel on it. The Ishapore has a very long distance to the origin of rifling, roughly ¼" longer than the Mauser.

I have been more concerned with getting enough boolit in the neck while still staying somewhat close to the rifling for that rifle.

Basically, what I'm saying is don't worry about where the crimp groove is, it may or may not match what you need.

Robert

[dragon813gt]

I load for the 300 Savage. Keeping the bullet in the neck is pretty much impossible. I don't pay it any attention and they shoot accurately.