Breech seating

[Catch]

Would some of you share your experience with breech seating? I have been using this method just to see how it was "back then" and was quite surprised to find that my old replica Siles Sharpes liked the method. I made a breech seater with an old cartridge case and a brass tube so I could control how deep I seated the bullet in the free bore. Thanks Catch

[DonH]

catch;

I shoot a .32-40 on a High Wall action breechseated. This rifle has demonstrated it's ability to hold the 1 1/2" 25 ring on the ASSRA 200 yd target. The fly in the ointment is that one must be able to read and correctly adjust for wind and light conditions to get that from the rifle consistently. I am not up to the task anymore.

I shoot a bullet which tapers from bore (land) diameter up to .002" over groove diameter on the base and seat it about .060" ahead of the case mouth. Tapered bullets make seating easier because they are not fully engraving the rifling over their entire length. If, as I suspect, your rifle is .45 cal, the Lyman 457677 bullet is tapered and the mould readily available. Bullets for my rifle are cast from 1-25 or 1-30 tin-lead alloy. The relatively soft alloys also aid in ease of bullet seating. This methof of loading is best suited to low to moderate velocities. Harder alloys required for higher velocity shooting will make breech seating bullets very difficult.

I use a lever type bullet seating tool which locks into the breechblock mortise and seats the bullet effortlessly. I have also used a push-type seater which also take very little effort once the throat is lube-conditioned. (Also, bullet seating is easier if the bullet is seated into the throat immediately after firing the previous shot and the metal is still hot. The oldtimers believed this slowed cooling of lube in the bore and aided in shot to shot consistency. IT SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING THAT ONE SHOULD NOT DO THIS IF EASILY DISTRACTED.) Both seaters make use of a plunger inside a cartridge case into which the bullet is placed. When the case is inserted in the chamber the bullet is delivered into the chamber about as straight as possible. Any method which gets the job done without damaging the bullet is fine.

One bullet seating trick I have been taught is to seat the bullet in throat tne load a primed but uncharged case in the chamber. If the bullet properly seals the throat, when the primer is fired and the breech opened the case will pop out of the chamber. It may be necessary to seat the bullet deeper to achieve this kind of seal in the throat. A fairly soft alloy bullet when seated this way can be fired at up to the 1500 fps range without leading provided your lube is adequate. The principle benefit of this method of loading is to overcome the deficiencies of chambering and/or throating which are less than ideal for accuracy. Also of benefit is to orient bullet and case the same way each time you load. This is easily done by orienting the direction of the sprue cut on the bullet and case headstamp the way in the chamber each time you load.

The push-type bullet seater I referred to was made from a piece of mild steel rod turned down on one end to fit into a drilled out primer pocket of a shell case. The tip of the rod was turned down further and threaded and a short section of brass rod of bullet diameter threaded onto the steel rod. This serves a the plunger which pushes the bullet and when screwed in or out adjusts seating depth. A handle was fitted to the other end. If I can figure out how to do it I may post a picture of the tool. It is simple to make if you or a friend has a lathe.

Aside from aiding in accurate shooting, maybe the thing I appreciate the most about this type of shooting is that it is a step back in time to a more liesurely pace of shooting.

Good luck and fun shooting!

[felix]

Excellent, DonH. If you permit me to add, I would like to imply that case orientation is permitted only in this kind of application. The reason is the orientation's capability of closing up the breech without allowing any pressure escape upon firing. No way for the "chamber" to get more burnt out-of-round per shot. ... felix