Loading for a match.

[Gunlaker]

Chris, Thanks for that. I have noticed my Lyman Case trimmer does seem give variations in length. I do have some short cases.
Keith

I'm using an older RCBS trimmer and it's not very consistent either.

Chris.

[flatsguide]

Wilson case trimmer gives consistent results...A bit on the pricey side is the only negative.
Richard

[rfd]

i use the lee deluxe quick trim press mounted trimmer chamfer twizzler thingy, it works fast 'n' fine for me and the brass.

[rfd]

.... To size my sticky case all the way to the rim I set the size die up so it is .070" off the top of a smaller caliber shell holder. I take a case and slide it up into the die to start it, the case is not in the shell holder. I then bring the ram up with the smaller shell holder in place so the brass is on top of the shell holder. The case is lubed of course. I can then push the case all the way up into the die until the rim contacts the bottom of the die. The top of the size die has been cut off too. That may or may not be necessary. I lower the ram and put a special punch I made into the mouth of the case, the punch locates in the flash hole and I can then tap the case down and out of the die using a hammer and without damage to the flash hole. ...

DT

sticky fired cases ...
i'm giving this a try to see if it'll fix my sticky case issues. i took 10 new starline cases and reformed them, then sent them fully up into the die using a smaller caliber shell holder as the pedestal. the resulting brass chambers well, as expected.

stubborn wads in tight PPB brass ...
with tight PPB chambers, another issue crops up - stuffing a .060" LDPE wad into the much smaller than normal case mouth. brent has the same issue and he advised a slight bell of the case mouth. however, at least for me, that doesn't help at all because since the now slimmer PPB starline case is full to the brim with 83.5 grains swiss 1-1/2f there's no airspace to use as leverage for getting in that plastic wad. what i found that does work is to first push in a much thinner wad (.025" milk carton wad or even a .002" newsprint wad) - this pushes in real easy and can be aided by using a 7/16" short length of dowel (for .45 caliber). this gets compressed down .100", which makes pressing in the .060" wad a breeze, and then that gets compressed as well.

one of my two PPB issues solved, one to go ....

[Gunlaker]

RFD, I sometimes compress with a 0.030" wad before adding the LDPE for basically the same reason.

I also use LDPE wads that I cut myself. The ones my Cornell press mounted cutter makes are 0.460" while the wads I've bought from BACO are often 0.463" which makes them a bit tighter. They are a little easier to stuff into my cases ( I have a chamber with a 0.474" diameter at the case mouth.

If it's of any interest, I've also experimented with different wad diameters. Back when Dan Theodore sold much of his BP stuff I bought a 0.450" wad cutter from him, and have tried a .45 Colt wad cutter. Neither seemed as good as stuffing a tighter fitting wad into the case.

Chris.

[rfd]

chris, with my reformed brass, a .060" x .463" LDPE wad would be tough to fit. i use a cornell .460" punch, too. the process i have now works works well, need to see if the range work differs. i would think that a wad should be at least groove diameter, else there could be issues?

[Gunlaker]

Yeah the 0.463" wads are a very tough fit, and of course they don't sit very flat with a .454" inside case diameter.

When Dan was working with his PP chambers ( same ones I'm shooting ) he believed that a wad that sat flat in the case, and was of the same diameter of the inside of the case after fire forming, was best. After playing with it a bit ( and I certainly didn't try enough to be 100% confident ), it seemed that jamming a larger wad in there works better. So basically I agree with you

Chris.

[rfd]

struggling with a wad that's considerably larger than groove diameter is not my idea of fun cartridge building. i'd ditch those .463's in a heart beat and go back to the cornell .460 wad. there's enuf to be concerned about PPB loading as it is without throwing in a monkey wrench.

are you required to reform new brass for the DT chamber? in my case (pun again intended) it's an absolute must. and after doing so, now my load/wad process is easy peasy with .060 x .460 LDPE wads. once fire formed, i'm good to go.

[flatsguide]

I can sure see the problem of inserting a LDPE wad that is about .020 oversized. I think but don’t know that LDPE wads are somewhat visco-elastic and upon firing will be squeezed flatter and the diameter would increase. I agree that at groove or a few thousandths over would be best but that is a small subject for a good practical experiment. What are your thoughts on this. After firing and cleaning, anneal and expand the neck maybe .025 long where the wad just fits with thumb pressure. After charging and setting the wad, size the neck back down for the desired neck tension or lack of.

[rfd]

I can sure see the problem of inserting a LDPE wad that is about .020 oversized. I think but don’t know that LDPE wads are somewhat visco-elastic and upon firing will be squeezed flatter and the diameter would increase. I agree that at groove or a few thousandths over would be best but that is a small subject for a good practical experiment. What are your thoughts on this. After firing and cleaning, anneal and expand the neck maybe .025 long where the wad just fits with thumb pressure. After charging and setting the wad, size the neck back down for the desired neck tension or lack of.

for me, *everything* depends on the chamber. it will tell me what it wants done. for me and my *tight* PPB chambers, that means no annealing, just clean the fire formed brass, check its length, a VERY slight mouth expand to better accept any wad, drop tube charge the case to its rim (83.5 grains of swiss 1.5), push a .002 to .025 x .460 paper or card wad with thumb and dowel, compress with a die plug, thumb push in the .060 x .460 LDPE wad and .100 die plug compression. the PPB slides in (also thanx to the slight case mouth expand) and then the cartridge gets a ride up into a taper crimp die that's set to just squeeze the case mouth back in line. there is nearly zero neck tension as the PPB can easily twist around and be pulled out with fingers, yet it won't fall out whence turned upside down.

[flatsguide]

Rob, I misunderstood what you wrote, I thought you were having trouble with inserting the LDPE wads, hen ce my solution for a problem that did not exist.
Regards, Richards

[rfd]

YES, i did have a problem getting in a .060" x .460" LDPE into the reformed case mouth when the case was filled completely with powder (no space to apply fulcrum to getting that wad in a narrow case mouth). that problem was solved by first slightly expanding the case mouth and then pushing in a thin card/paper wad and compressing to yield .100" space below the rim and then the LDPE wad went it easily (and then it got the .100" compression as well).

[Gunlaker]

struggling with a wad that's considerably larger than groove diameter is not my idea of fun cartridge building. i'd ditch those .463's in a heart beat and go back to the cornell .460 wad. there's enuf to be concerned about PPB loading as it is without throwing in a monkey wrench.

are you required to reform new brass for the DT chamber? in my case (pun again intended) it's an absolute must. and after doing so, now my load/wad process is easy peasy with .060 x .460 LDPE wads. once fire formed, i'm good to go.

I think I worded my reply poorly. I did ditch the 0.463" wads for the 0.460". I've also played with 0.450" and 0.454".

For Dan's chambers you don'y really need to do much. Just a full length size followed by squeezing the necks own a little more with a .45 Colt sizing die so they will chamber. Then I fire them twice and trim them to the chamber length. They tend to shoot quite well even before the final trimming to length.

Chris.

[flatsguide]

Rob, why are you putting in so much powder (83.5gns)? I noticed that you then compress that charge .100 and I expect your seating the bullets pretty shallow too. Are these loads for long range like 800, 900 and 1000 yards or do you get your best accuracy with that load. Could you post some pictures of your groups please? MyBrowning is shooting pretty consistent 1.3 inch groups at a hundred yards with a velocity around 1230fps at fifteen feet from the muzzle with 80 gns of Swiss 1.5. The stock buttstock was too long by almost an inch and then when I added a recoil pad it wound up really long and uncomfortable to shoot. I made a new buttstock, below, with a 12 7/8 lop and I think that will help with my scores. Thanks, Richard

[Distant Thunder]

The Lodi September 2018 match is in the books. As is always the case it was a well run and fun match. We had 22 shooters although not all of them were able to shoot both days and a couple did not finish the match due to equipment problems.

This was a two-day match with 10 shots for record starting at 1000 yards, 900 and 800 each day, for a total of 60 record shots. Unlimited sighters and 30-minute relays. The September match has more relaxed rules than the NRA matches held there each year. Shooters may use just about any safe load with plain base lead bullets. They may also use more than one rifle. All shooters compete head to head with no individual classes for scopes or iron sights or anything else.

Like so many of the matches lately we had some very tricky winds to deal with. Both days we had a gusty tailwind coming in over our right shoulder that switched from 4 o'clock to 7 o'clock and back again often and quickly. Saturday the wind was 12-15 mph at a guess with some much stronger gusts. Sunday I don't think the wind was as strong in the gusts but reversals were many and would either switch so fast that getting a shot off in your condition before the wind flipped again was very challenging or it would flip and hold until we finally had to dialed in a correction and would then flip back before we could get a shot off. More than once we were down to just seconds to dial and get the last shot off before the cease fire command.

Everybody got their butts kicked by unexpected vertical shifts that were hard to see coming or hard to explain. This sometimes resulted in very high or low 6s or all too often misses over and under the paper. I know I had several that I was lucky to have catch the edge of paper and give me a 6 instead of a miss. I was lucky enough to keep all my scoring shots on paper even if just barely on paper at times. Many were not so lucky.

The ammo I showed early in this thread performed very well for me. I was a bit unhappy with my shooting on Saturday and though it wasn't bad I knew it could be better. Sunday I was more careful to get everything, especially my cross sticks set up correctly. Also because I felt the need to rush after each shot and get the next one ready to shoot I think I was probably coming out of the rifle too early and not following through like I should. Sunday I made sure I stayed with the rifle a good second or two after breaking each shot and I believe it helped add a few points to my score.

Lodi match tend to have a good number of paper patch shooters and they also tend to do very well competing against the greasers. We also had some new shooters which we need if the matches are to continue. At least a couple of paper patchers shot personal bests this past weekend and one new convert out shot anything he ever did with grease groove bullets.

After 21 years of shooting these matches you would think I'd have it all figured out, but I made a few changes in the way I set up at the line on Sunday that seemed to help me be in a better shooting position. This picture I took after I set up at 800 yards on Sunday, the result was 97-3X.



My best relay of the weekend. Brent Danielson was spotting for me and he certainly had the conditions dialed in. Because I had everything set up correctly I wasn't fighting my position like I sometimes do and I was breaking good shots for the most part.



The final results of the match. Bob Wood and Brent Danielson did an excellent job of spotting for me, my rifle is more accurate than I can shoot on a regular basis and my ammo is carefully assembled to give me match winning potential. Every once in a while I manage to keep my head out and I do my friends and equipment justice. This weekend was one of those times.




DT

[Lead pot]

That's a pretty respectable score Jim. Also Bob and Brent did a fine job keeping you on target.
Good work!!......Kurt

[flatsguide]

Congratulations DT! I hope to get to shoot up there next year.
Regards, Richard

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

Those tailwinds have been just brutal the last few matches, but they were absolutely the worst I've seen on Sunday. What Bob did in the scope at 1000 yards Sunday morning and then Brent later at 800 were very impressive. Bob actually shot better than his scores show, he just got a nasty couple of relays and we ran short on time at 900 Sunday. The switches were coming so fast I couldn't get the words out of mouth fast enough to either hold or shoot! On my timer he had 3 seconds when he fire the last shot, a 10, and the CEASE FIRE command was still coming out of Mark's mouth. His last 4 shot were just crank and shoot, wipe, load and repeat! We held the paper!

We miss you at the match and many were asking about you. You should really come join us again.


Richard,

Come on up, it's a great range, always a good match, and a great bunch of guys. As you can see from the scores there is room for all shooters and everyone is welcome. We do need more shooters or the BPCR days at Lodi are not many. If we had just maybe 8 to 10 more guys show up the matches would continue for much longer. Less than 20 and it becomes hard for the club to justify giving the range to a handful of old guys shooting old rifles. The club works hard at expanding the range, making improvements and maintaining the grounds, They need a good return for allowing us BPCR people to take over the place 3 weekends a year. The other shooting disciplines that could use the range on those 3 weekends would draw more people and therefore money. That's just the simple facts of business.

Thanks guys!

DT

[GrumpyBear]

Thanks for the great write up on the Lodi shoot, sounds like fun in spite of the winds.

Good shooting.

[Lead pot]

Jim I miss not shooting at Lodi and I miss the shooters they are a great bunch. I'm a long range shooter by heart and the Lodi range is a tough range with it's fast changes in conditions and I know if I'm spotting for a shooter that has a tendency to take his time breaking a shot when I say take your shot and I hear the pulse thumping in my ear waiting for the shot to go off as I see the conditions starting to reverse and I'm just starting to say hold it /bang/ then a slow pull of the target waiting for the marker. I curled my toes many times spotting for Brent I would sooner do anything then spot. When my shooter makes a low final I blame myself for not getting him on the top of the finals.