In uberti barreled sharps 45 70 :

[kennisondan]

How do you get the kind of length necessary for engaging rifling with your reloads...
How heavy does the bullet need to be to reach those kinds of o.a.l. ?
Suggestions on finding some cast already and lubed to buy to get started with ...?
Dk

[NickSS]

I generally seat a bullet just barely into the case and insert the round in the chamber. If it does not go in all the way I measure the amount it sticks out and adjust my seating die to push the bullet in that much. I generally will shorten the length up a couple thousandths to give space for fouling and slightly fat bullets. I record that length for that bullet. I have found almost every bullet and every rifle to be just a little different so OAL varies. As I mostly target shoot I do not care if a lube groove or two is sticking out. I just seat bullets to cover all the lube grooves for hunting ammo as I am not shooting at long ranges and it makes little difference in hunting if the gun shoots 3 MOA of 1 MOA it makes no difference when shooting game at close ranges uo to a couple hundred yards.

[kennisondan]

nick : I know it is semantics but : it is the amount it sticks in that I want to repeat, correct ? I am not thinking that clearly so forgive me for re phrasing it.. and correct me if I am wrong.. that is the way I can understand it.. the bullet pushes back to the point the lands and grooves are pushing it back into the cartridge and you back it off just a smidgen (smidgen -= less than a tiny bit more than a hair, correct lol).. it may be that the terms you used setting the seater die is actually measured off the amount sticking out the front of the cartridge. I imagine with a good seating die you can measure the amount to set the seating depth with a micrometer adjustment. the cheap ones I have used for the pistols are just made to crank them down and I dealt in how deep the bullet sat into the cartridge to catch the groove that helped to hold that baby in place since with a six gun if you do not do so you can tie up the gun with a little movement of the bullets forward due to recoil or a little dirt and grime from a nasty holster ride..
thanks good brother of mine.. you helped me again. I feel indebted..
dk
my question so you do not do what is called engraving the rifling and do not leave it touching exactly ? you do back it off just a little .. that makes sense to me as the little bit of jump may make the bullet size to fit the throat and barrel better haveing a run at it for even a little ..
and once again you are correct and I am able to stand on the shoulders of giants .. no problem with hiding the grease grooves in a hunting bullet.. And heck as little as I get to shoot in this old swamp I should not worry about exposed grooves.. I may make up a good way to hold onto a couple and just cover the thing with waxed paper lol.. just to keep the major twigs and mud globs off of the ones waiting to be fed through this single shot shooter.. I never ever get to shoot twice with my ruger one and this will not be different I have the feeling unless I am lobbing from some real distance and missing by so far they are laughing to hard to discern where the disturbance is coming from ..
lol
dk

[NickSS]

Actually the bullet should touch the rifling for max accuracy but I have found that powder fouling will make for tight fits in my sharps so I tighten the seating die about a quarter turn to seat the bullet a bit deeper in the case once I have found the length that touches the rifling. I only do this with black powder and do it only due to the build up of fouling causes the round to be hard to seat. I have found that it makes little or no difference in accuracy and saves some difficulty in seating rounds during a match. I do not worry about touching the rifling for hunting loads as I have found that my rifles shoot well enough for hunting with all the grease grooves in the case. This makes extra rounds in my pocket not collect dirt and dust on exposed grease grooves which almost all my competition loads have.

[kennisondan]

thanks again to all ... this is a great education and something I wanted to know about for a long long time..
dan kennison

[home in oz]

Good Info