What is the best press for high end match grade rifle cartridges?

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Point_Taken

Point_Taken

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i know that it’s somewhat subjective but I can’t seem to get a consistent OAL on my Hornady LNL progressive press even when I use it like a single stage, basically I hand load the charge and put it in the #4 station. But seems to get a +/- .010 on the rounds OAL. I’m using Redding dies so I really can’t imagine it being a die issue.
 
If you're talking the COAL from head to tip of bullet . It's the variance in bullet tips that is causing your issue . If you can measure from the head to ogive of the bullet then you should shrink that variance quite a bit .

I've had as much as .011 COAL using 77gr smk when measuring from head to tip of bullet . But when I use my bullet comparator with Sinclair inserts the variance is only .002 to .003

( The Hornady Lock-N-Load Bullet Comparator is perfect for the reloader looking to quickly and precisely measure seating depth of loaded ammunition from the bullet ogive to the base of a loaded round to eliminate variation in seating depth. )
https://ads.midwayusa.com/product/3...hekMIEJ5R7XJWM7bV_vme3BXZG1zp9eBoCWSMQAvD_BwE
 
Maybe I'm old school but I only run straight wall pistol on the progressive. All bottleneck rifle ammo is done on a turret press. It's more time consuming but I have absolute control of every operation this way. Then again, I don't use center-fire rifles for plinking. Every round is either a well aimed target or a critter-gitter.

.40
 
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Point_Taken said:
I can’t seem to get a consistent OAL on my Hornady LNL progressive press even when I use it like a single stage
Click to expand...
Better brass won't fix that, it just holds the bullet, and, as posted, if you are looking for best accuracy, you should be measuring to the bullets ogive, not the tip.
 
I'm using the Hornady LNL progressive and seating in station 1. Measuring to the ojive I'm getting .002-.003 variance, I'm not sure what that transfers to in COAL but I'm sure it will be a larger variance, since I started measuring to the ojive I quit worrying about the COAL as much. As far as which press is most accurate in providing consistent seating and sizing I'm not sure, maybe Wilson dies in an arbor press, it seems like that design would take away a lot of the movement of the press and move everything to the die which is a pretty solid steel on steel stop. If you seat it all the way down your done it can't go further down than that no matter what you do. Now how that measures on the actual cartridge is what I don't know as i have never used that design.
 
Like the others, I think you're issue is where/how you are measuring. Not with your press. I'm not really convinced that any press is a lot better than any other. The Co-Ax has a very loyal following. If you are really interested in another press it would bare looking into. Real accuracy guys will probably be using an Arbor press and Wilson or Neil Jones dies.
 
Where you worry about flex in the press is when resizing large brass bottle necked cases that are traditionally hard to resize. Seating a bullet and crimping does not take a lot of force and as such will work well in any press that is not worn out to the point it has major slop in the linkage. Look inside of your seating die, the contact point is somewhere on the ogive NOT on the bullet tip. If you don't have a fancy gauge then take a brass casing that fits part way down on the bullet (near the size of the contact point in your seating die) and measure the total length of it and the round with your calipers. As said above you will be a lot more consistent. You will just have to make sure that the total length will fit and function on the longest round you make as all others will fit.
 
As said measure off the ogive not the tip of the bullet and see what your variation is. Also if your using ELD type bullets you need to confirm that the bullet is not contacting at the tip. Most std seating dies will contact the tip, not the ogive. I had a neighbor came by having the same problem. He was contacting the tip of the bullet with his RCBS seating stem. I modified his seating stem to contact the ogive and not the tip. Redding sells special seating stems for their dies. I had to get one for my 6.5 CM for it would actually rock on the tip if you set a bullet in it. So you can do the same test to confirm where your contacting the bullet at.
 
Thanks for the quick education everyone. Since a lot of load data gives a min or max COAL, how do you guys determine CBTO that would be appropriate for the load data? Say for example, I'm looking for a COAL of 3.330", how do you guys figure out what the appropriate CBTO is for that COAL?
 
Base-to-Ogive? The comparators that we can use for handloading are not all that valuable for absolute measurements--the point of the comparator is to be able to compare one to the next and judge whether they're close to the same. The seating die should be putting the ogives at pretty much the same spot and so chasing an exact number is kinda pointless.

But if I really wanted to know what that measurement is, I'd seat one to the OAL at the book's 3.330" published length and then measure with the comparator where the ogive is. Get comfortable with the reality that OAL isn't an absolute number due to differences from one bullet to the next as far as what the tip looks like. The tools we got are good for giving us baseline measurements and performing comparisons relative to that baseline.

The seating die is putting the ogives in pretty much the same spot.
 
Point_Taken said:
Thanks for the quick education everyone. Since a lot of load data gives a min or max COAL, how do you guys determine CBTO that would be appropriate for the load data? Say for example, I'm looking for a COAL of 3.330", how do you guys figure out what the appropriate CBTO is for that COAL?
Click to expand...

Data manual COAL is wholly irrelevant for reloading for your real-world rifle chamber.

Find your lands, decide your desired jump from the lands, and measure the BTO length for that length.

If you want to play with arbitrary manual COAL’s, you can measure a handful of bullets for total length vs. base to ogive, you’ll see outliers and an average. Subtract the bullet BTO length from the bullet total length, and that will give you the number by which to reduce your data book COAL’s for their respective BTO length. Or you can simply seat an “average” bullet to the book COAL and then measure the BTO for that particular bullet.

But again - the book COAL’s are largely just a shot in the dark. They’re usually too short for most chambers, as the manufacturers pick a length which will fit in minimum SAAMI spec chambers. If yours is not minimum spec, why load your ammo to minimum spec?
 
The only times the COAL come into play if when you want to feed from a magazine. I've had to reduce some due to the fact I wanted to magazine feed the bullets instead of single feed.
 
I'm with the previous 3 responders. Where I fall, though, depends on the gun.

For semi-autos I pay reasonable attention to COAL in the manual, but more importantly make sure a given COAL works with the magazine. So I use the published data as a check or reference point......something to consider. In this scenario, I agree with @ArchAngelCD : .010" makes virtually no difference - given the kind of gun and type of shooting I'm doing.

For precision rifles I think I virtually completely ignore published COAL data. In this case I measure distance to the lands (what the base-to-ogive measurement where the ogive is touching the lands) for a given make/model of bullet, and then I do all bullet seating relative to that max distance, measuring only at the ogive. While my final optimum load may be different from where I start, I'll frequently start my load workup with the ogive .010" from the lands. So in this world, .010" is a really big deal. Being off by .010" could mean the difference between being jammed into the lands or not. Since the ogive measurement is so much more reliable than measuring out to the bullet tip, that's why I don't use COAL for this type of loading and shooting. I can't recall the last time I measured COAL for these types of rounds. But I make sure every round measures to the ogive within .0001" of where I want it to be.

OR
 
.010 is huge if your loading to mag length like a 77gr smk in a AR . I made the mistake once to measure my COAL from head to tip of bullet on the first cartridge I loaded . It was 2.257 and i just started cranking them out . The next day when I went shooting the rounds were binding up in the mag failing to feed . Got home and measured a bunch and most were well over 2.260 .
 
The OP said nothing about loading to the limits of a magazine or anything about the rifle. I was speaking about accuracy and a difference of only 1/100" COAL to the tip of a bullet.
 
I have nothing to add, except to say I wish I had asked this question when I started out. It took me a while before I realized that measuring to the ogive was more important than COAL for everything other than fit in the magazine. Good info here.
 
Let me put it this way, I'm trying to make the mast accurate rifle loads that I can lol. Whatever tools I've got to use or things I've got to learn, I'm game.
 
Point_Taken said:
use it like a single stage,
Click to expand...

The Lee Dead length seating die makes contact with the shell holder/shell plate. LEE- Knowledgebase Easy Adjust Dead Length Bullet Seating die adjustment Posted by on 13 August 2015 03:32 PM Make sure that you have the bullet seating die adjusted down so that the shell holder contacts the base of the die when the ram is raised to the top of its stroke. The Ultimate, Collet and PaceSetter 3-die sets come with the Easy Adjust Dead length bullet seating die, which does not crimp the case, and is designed to be adjusted that way to eliminate clearance in the press for a more uniform bullet seating depth.

The Redding comp seat die can be adjusted to LIGHTLY contact shell plate or shell holder. Hard contact will damage the die.
Contact acts as a stop and helps reduce flex or slop in press linkage.

So the manufactures claim.

Avoid the crimping ring thats in most standard seat dies.
 
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I would tend to agree; 10 thousandths variation in COAL, which is typically a primarily lot of tip variation, doesn’t TERRIBLY impact accuracy potential. I’ve sorted bullets by tip length and have trimmed meplats and pointed bullets, but rarely did it make a significant impact to the raw precision potential of the bullet lot.

BUT - if I ever did see 10 thousandths variation in my loads - a huge variability - I would expect something is terribly amiss. Maybe it’s something as simple as mixing lots of bullets. Maybe as simple as using low cost bullets with high variability - which, if I’m measuring COAL’s or BTO’s at all, it typically means I’m shooting precision SOMETHING, and low cost, high variability bullets is “something terribly amiss.” I do shoot cheap bullets sometimes, but not in a precision application where I would be measuring each round for variability.

So really - if I’m measuring for consistency and find 1/100” variation, SOMETHING is broken. Either I’m not running the ram consistently (broken operator), or there’s something terribly wrong with my press or dies - I’d expect a trend through a batch here, either a step change or a ramp, maybe a die or seater stem coming loose, or maybe gunk building up behind a sliding seating stem (Hornady style), or on the stem, or maybe a compressed load with variable neck tension or charge weight/orientation. Usually the only real-world factor is the operator error, short stroking the ram, failing to cam over the same every time.

We’re seating against the ogive, so it stands to reason that the variable tips standing above the ogive might yield variability, but the BTO lengths should be very consistent. If a guy sees 10 thousandths variability in BTO, something went wrong. Even in tips, that’s a ton of variability.

If I ran down to my ammo cabinet and found 10 thousandths variability in any of my match loads, I would think something went terribly wrong.
 
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