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Jacob Gottfredson
Handloading For Precision
Part 2
These little things give you an edge.
K&M provides quality tools at reasonable prices. The K&M die in the center holds a mandrel matched to the K&M neck turning tool on the right, making for a perfect fit. These neck turners allow you to move the blade either in or out by tuning the screw. This is not possible with many neck turners. Also, the rake on the blade is biased correctly. The dial indicator added to the neck turner on the left allows you to measure the thickness of the neck cut. The attachment on the left side provides precise movement of the mandrel to control the length of the cut.
In Part I of Handloading For Precision, I offered this opinion: “Without going to extremes, weighing cases is the single most important thing you can do to improve performance in handloads. Deburring primer pockets in cases is helpful as well.” That opinion, however, was offered without much qualification. This part of Handloading For Precision will try to provide that as well as take the reader beyond the “most important” to those methods that will often extract the most your rifle is capable of.

Weighing cases ensures the interior volume of the case has the potential to be the same from case to case, which in turns provides the potential for the each case to produce identical pressure and velocity at each firing. Unfortunately, the story is a bit more complicated. Shooting begs the question of use and need, the quality of the equipment and the ability of the shooter. Are you simply hunting elk at less then 250 yards? Are you trying to hit small varmints past 500 yards? Are you interesting in long- and ultra long-range shooting or do you have your sights set on winning a Benchrest Championship?

Trying different bullets, powders, primers and seating depths is the act of tuning the load to the barrel’s harmonics. All is dependent on the quality of the rifle, the equipment and your ability to handle the rifle and read the wind. Those subjects are not part of the scope of this article. Rather, we will look at some of the more rigorous methods of handloading for precision.

We had mentioned deburring the flash holes as well as making them a uniform size, promoting, we hope, consistent ignition. In a strictly hunting rifle, you might decide full-length sizing promotes better feed, something a hunter relies on. However, fireforming the case to the chamber and then just neck sizing thereafter promotes accuracy and longer case life.

Chambers and cases are manufactured to SAAMI specs. SAAMI dictates tolerances to prevent a case from being too big and a chamber too small in a non-custom chamber. On occasion, a chamber will be cut to the top of the spec and the case to the bottom of the spec, making for a sloppy fit. The case lays askew, the neck often lower than the head, in the chamber ensuring the bullet is not aligned with the bore. Fireforming cases and then simply neck sizing prolongs the life of the brass and the bullet is more likely to be aligned with the bore. But let’s back up a bit.

Prior to fireforming, there are a couple things we can do to help ignition and promote consistent release of the bullet. There are many good dies on the market, one example being Redding’s Competition die set with a body die. Once set up correctly, run each case into the full-length sizing die. This ensures each case is identical in length and size from the head to the shoulder/body juncture and from there to the shoulder/neck juncture. Now trim each case to the same length. Chamfer the case neck inside and out. Cases should now be identical, one to the other, as is possible.

There's More Handloader
in the April issue

• Outside Neck Turning
• Cut Length

ORDER YOUR APRIL
2008 ISSUE HERE
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