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Jacob Gottfredson
Handloading For Precision
Part 1
Squeezing The Last Extra Bit Of Accuracy From Your Rifle.
Check run out to determine the straightness of the case as well as the bullet to case concentricity. The case should be checked after firing to determine chamber straightness.
There are many ways to improve the accuracy of a centerfire rifle, such as bedding, trigger tuning and myriad others. But as much as all this is done, all barrels still have their own harmonic signature, and ammunition has to be tuned to that signature to obtain optimum precision, given the rifle, barrel and shooter are up to par.

There are several ways you can tune the ammunition to the barrel’s liking. Barrel tuners are becoming popular among competitors, and Browning and Winchester install them on hunting rifles sold over the counter. Another method, for those who don’t reload, is to go to your favorite sporting goods store and buy several brands of ammo with bullets fitting your need. One might shoot very well in your rifle, while the others do not. Go back to the store and buy all you can of that lot. The third method is handloading and tuning the ammo to the barrel’s harmonic signature. The latter is the subject of this article.

The truth is, once you have the tuned the load with the easy stuff given here, the “go-the-extra-mile” stuff in Part Two will only give you that little bit Benchrest competitors and long-range shooters need to be successful. Theirs is a tedious endeavor, but their gadgets are fun.

The first chore out of the bag is to weigh and segregate new cases. Here’s why. When you run cases through the sizing die, the outside dimension on all cases will be the same. If a case is heavy, relative to the others in that lot, the internal volume is less relative to the others. The heavy case will generate more pressure than the lighter cases. When you run them over a chronograph, you will see the velocity spread and standard deviation are large if you are shooting both light and heavy cases. It’s not conducive to fine accuracy.

There's More Handloader
in the March issue

• 7 Clues To Better Handloads
• Spec Matters

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2008 ISSUE HERE
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