Inconsistent seating depth

[thumbs]

Thanks again guys. I appreciate the help

The problem is solved. It was the concave end of the seating die hitting the bullet at different angles. I reversed the seating rod to the flat end and she works fine.

[jmorris]

Are you sure about those numbers, as .3" variance for anything, especially a 25mm long casing is a huge variance. Check the primer seating. Some bullets may get deformed during seating, also. But, if they seat in the magazine ok and pass the Plunk Test ok, they are fine.

He caught that in #14 after he found and solved his problem in #13.

[Three44s]

Thanks for sharing your success!

Good shooting

Three44s

[1hole]

... thanks guys. All your ideas were possibilities. It seems ,so far, it was the seating rod that was the culprit.

Don't think so. You're using the same solid steel seating plug each time and it doesn't change. What does change each time are your bullets (and cases) but I believe you're chasing idealistic shadows anyway.

I think you mean your OAL varies up to 30 thou; that's really not bad for that round, just make 'em so they feed and chamber reliably and go shooting. Sure, it would be nice if you could load them to bench shooter specs but, for cast bullets in that cartridge and its pistols, it's very unlikely to have any measurable effect on your targets if you did. I'd smile, shoot 'em as they are and enjoy it.

[pastera]

I use my 3d printer to print custom seaters (and dies) for bullets that don't seat reliably with the default seaters.
For Lee dies it doesn't take much work - I use a picture of the seater insert and the bullet along side a 6" scale to model a new seater insert in Fusion 360. For cast bullets with a published drawing, the bullet profile can be very precisely matched but a good image works well enough.

As far as strength, I use 3d printed parts for top dies for my Lyman and run 100% 3d printed bullet seaters without issue (I did manage to break a printed 9mm seating die, but that was operator error and after it had seated thousands of rounds)

[pastera]

I use my 3d printer to print custom seaters (and dies) for bullets that don't seat reliably with the default seaters.
For Lee dies it doesn't take much work - I use a picture of the seater insert and the bullet along side a 6" scale to model a new seater insert in Fusion 360. For cast bullets with a published drawing, the bullet profile can be very precisely matched but a good image works well enough.

As far as strength, I use 3d printed parts for top dies for my Lyman and run 100% 3d printed bullet seaters without issue (I did manage to break a printed 9mm seating die, but that was operator error and after it had seated thousands of rounds)