berettaprofessor
Member
I see a lot of posts about relying on a bullet comparator to compare bullet length versus measuring OAL. Today, I was loading up a three different bullets for a comparison accuracy trial of 224 Valkyrie and I thought, what the heck, this is a perfect chance to measure these both ways (direct OAL or with a Hornady Bullet Comparator) and compare the consistency.
Specifics: All bullets were seated with an unaltered Lee 224 Valkyrie seating die. I set the first bullet OAL to 2.260 and did not readjust the OAL while I loaded 5 each of three different bullets. Cases had been trimmed to 1.590 and deburred after neck sizing in a Redding die. The Hornady Comparator test used the 22 gauge insert to measure base to ogive in an analog caliper. The OAL base to tip length was measured with the same analog caliper. Results in the table below:
Obviously, the most important lines are the spread and SD. As measured OAL with the caliper, the spread between minimum and maximum of the 5 bullets of each type varied from 0.006 to 0.002. With the Hornady Comparator, the spread was exactly 0.002 for all bullets; which, I would conclude, is the repeatability of seating each of these bullets with a standard Lee seating die combined with the variation induced by my measurement with the comparator and caliper and the variation of the bullet shape itself. Pretty darned consistent either way, but now I wonder if consistency would be better if I used a micrometer adjustable die from another manufacturer (I don't have any). Would "0.000" versus "0.002" spread base to ogive really make a measurable difference with all the other variables that might affect long range accuracy?
Conclusion: Yes, the Hornady bullet comparator is better at demonstrating length consistency in loaded rounds. Is it worth the extra cost and time to confirm that seating dies are consistent? That's up to each of you, but myself, I'm probably not going to spend a lot of time measuring other than OAL. I don't shoot good enough to worry about the difference, at least yet, and maybe never.
Specifics: All bullets were seated with an unaltered Lee 224 Valkyrie seating die. I set the first bullet OAL to 2.260 and did not readjust the OAL while I loaded 5 each of three different bullets. Cases had been trimmed to 1.590 and deburred after neck sizing in a Redding die. The Hornady Comparator test used the 22 gauge insert to measure base to ogive in an analog caliper. The OAL base to tip length was measured with the same analog caliper. Results in the table below:
Obviously, the most important lines are the spread and SD. As measured OAL with the caliper, the spread between minimum and maximum of the 5 bullets of each type varied from 0.006 to 0.002. With the Hornady Comparator, the spread was exactly 0.002 for all bullets; which, I would conclude, is the repeatability of seating each of these bullets with a standard Lee seating die combined with the variation induced by my measurement with the comparator and caliper and the variation of the bullet shape itself. Pretty darned consistent either way, but now I wonder if consistency would be better if I used a micrometer adjustable die from another manufacturer (I don't have any). Would "0.000" versus "0.002" spread base to ogive really make a measurable difference with all the other variables that might affect long range accuracy?
Conclusion: Yes, the Hornady bullet comparator is better at demonstrating length consistency in loaded rounds. Is it worth the extra cost and time to confirm that seating dies are consistent? That's up to each of you, but myself, I'm probably not going to spend a lot of time measuring other than OAL. I don't shoot good enough to worry about the difference, at least yet, and maybe never.