Boolits Below Case Necks

[Black Lung]

Hey casters,

I've been casting for about 3 years now, all for straight wall handgun cartridges, and just recently started casting some boolits for my rifles. I loaded up some 30-30 rounds with Lee 170 gr. flat point boolits, no problem, and had about 4 boolits left over, so I decided to try them in a 308 Win rifle I have and loaded these up last night. Now the problem...

If I seat the boolit deep enough to cover all the grease grooves, the boolit's base sticks way below the cartridge neck (these are gas-checked boolits) and the gas check and lower lube grooves are down in the powder. If I seat the boolits long, the upper grease grooves are exposed.

What am I missing here? How am I supposed to seat these boolits?

Thanks!

[Jim]

I seat 'long for caliber' boolits deep enough to chamber without engaging the riflings. Sometimes, this puts the base of the boolit in the case below the shoulder and into the powder, but the lube I use is not tacky, so I'm not worried about the powder sticking to the boolit.

This may or may not affect COL for feeding from a magazine. Virtually all of my shooting is done one round at a time, so that's not an issue for me.

You'll get a lot of responses to this post, so others will have more to offer.

[Sonnypie]

Sometimes there is no other way.
I have a Lyman 170g mold that is just plain long for my chamber. I like the bullet and how it shoots.
I load it for zero jump, and it is back in the powder room anyway.
Still shoots fine.
Like Jim, I only load one at a time anyway. But they will feed from the magazine fine.

[303Guy]

My concern would be powder granules getting into the bottom lube groove. If it's not exposed to the powder then there shouldn't be a problem provided the boolit base can't 'rivet' on ignition. Riveting would upset the boolit base and destroy accuracy and raise chamber pressure. I never seat below the shoulder so I don't have any experience with it.

Black Lung, what is your 30-30 load is and how is the accuracy?

There are some folks shooting very long 303 boolits with long bore-ride sections so the boolits are still not seated deep. Would getting a specific mold for your 308 be a consideration?

I have a near future project planned to shorten the chamber of one of my rifles to lengthen the neck so as to be able to seat longer boolits and still use the magazine. It will also prevent the chambering of full pressure loads in an old and de-rated rifle.

[303Guy]

Sonnypie, How is the accuracy of those two loads of yours? On the exposed lube groove - is it possible to use a thermo softening lube that would be too hard to pick up dirt? Like in a heated lube-sizer? Or are there lubes available that resist dirt pick up without the need to warm up? I'm thinking in terms of setting up a hair dryer or something to warm the lube-sizer. Would that work?

[Black Lung]

Thanks for the replies so far guys, my load looks almot exactly like SonnyPie's, so I guess it's OK.

30-30Guy; Haven't had a chance to try my 30-30 loads yet. I just loaded them last night and am studying for a court case tomorrow, so it will be a few days before I can go shooting.

Again,Thanks. Also, after posting earlier, I read some old stickies about tumble lubing with JPW/LLA in various configurations and may try that too, as I have both lubes on hand.

[runfiverun]

just seat them out of the case and let the nose engrave the rifling.
this assures a straight start in the rifling.
you don't need 15 lube grooves full of lube any way, wipe it off
one lube groove is enough.

[Kansas Ed]

You say these are GC bullets? Snooky Williamson posted a photo in his book bearing the results of a case which the GC "blew off" the base which was loaded longer than the neck, thereby putting the GC below the neck. It wasn't pretty. I have never done this because of his experience. YMMV.

Ed