dmazur
Member
I thought I'd try Hornady's "headspace bushings". These are available as a complete kit, or separately. If you already have the Hornady bullet comparator, you have the caliper adapter. Then all you need is a bushing or two, depending on how many cartridges you reload.
It seemed like a relatively low-cost experiment, so I ordered a bushing for .30-06 and another for .243.
They are relatively easy to use, and if all you're trying to do is measure fired cases and adjust a resizing die for a desired headspace, they work fine. These are "relative" measurements.
However, I decided I was going to record actual case length (to datum) and that's where the fun started...
I used chamber headspace gauges for a known starting point (one in each caliber.) These measure 0.000" from the top step on my Wilson case gauges for further verification.
For one bushing, I had to subtract 1.995", and for the other bushing I had to subtract 1.998" from the length shown on the dial caliper, in order to get the marked length of the chamber gauge.
This is just so close to 2.000" I can't help but wonder if that was Hornady's intent.
And then there's this -
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=504759&highlight=hornady+headspace
which is making one yourself.
It seemed like a relatively low-cost experiment, so I ordered a bushing for .30-06 and another for .243.
They are relatively easy to use, and if all you're trying to do is measure fired cases and adjust a resizing die for a desired headspace, they work fine. These are "relative" measurements.
However, I decided I was going to record actual case length (to datum) and that's where the fun started...
I used chamber headspace gauges for a known starting point (one in each caliber.) These measure 0.000" from the top step on my Wilson case gauges for further verification.
For one bushing, I had to subtract 1.995", and for the other bushing I had to subtract 1.998" from the length shown on the dial caliper, in order to get the marked length of the chamber gauge.
This is just so close to 2.000" I can't help but wonder if that was Hornady's intent.
And then there's this -
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=504759&highlight=hornady+headspace
which is making one yourself.