bullet seating

[semtav]

Ive been patching BPCR cartridges with groove dia loads for a while now, but now want to try it in some of my "modern guns". my first question is do you always use powders that result in 100% load density? And if not, how do you seat the bullets so they don't go farther in the case when chambering.
Thanks

[OverMax]

do you always use powders that result in 100% load density?

I do.
Some prefer to Neck or FL size their case and then load their usual powder with their non-patched traditional recipe. I found doing the same inhibits my rifles accuracy. Than again using a slow burning stick powder is hard on the boolits base and/ or the patches tail area during the boolits seating. Best full case density powder for the purpose is a slow burning Ball powder. Lately I've been experimenting with a surplus 50 cal Ball powder. Its loading appears to be promising.

[303Guy]

I use a boolit and paper that seats firmly in an unsized neck. This requires a good match between throat size, chamber neck size and case neck thickness and seating depth.

One of my rifles requires a boolit with three blended tapers and for this rifle I made a push in push out die that sizes the core pretty close to optimum. With the right thickness paper the boolit sets into the chamber on its profiled shank and seats firmly into the unsized neck. This does require the core nose section to be under bore diameter but patched to over bore diameter such that the rifling impresses into the nose shank. I have not developed a satisfactory accurate load for it yet so I won't suggest doing as I do just yet. There are of course other reasons for less than stellar accuracy. My new drive is to use a shorter and lighter boolit as well as a stronger alloy. I'm yet to get out to the range with this new boolit and load.

As has been said, stick powders can be a but rough on boolit bases. I'm now working on spherical powders. While a full case of desirable it isn't always practical given the limited powders we can find. One can use fillers and I have had success with them but they can be a pain. Now I'm only using Dacron which does buffer the boolit base and also happens to prevent powder spilling out should a boolit remain in the throat on extraction.

Some folks seat the boolits far enough out so that they get seated to depth on bolt lock. This ensures full contact with the leade.

Worn throats seem to be better suited to paper patching. In fact, paper patching is a good way to bring old and worn milsurps back to life.

[CJR]

Semtav,

I'd suggest you download the free "NRA Cast Bullet Manual" on Castpics. Some of the NRA's recommendations will get you started on smokeless PP; both low and high velocity.

Best regards,

CJR

[semtav]

OK
Thanks
I'll look into that