berger 230g hybrid ogive deficiencies

[WYCFM1]

I just bought some 230g hybrids to load up and try out. running my hornady seating Comparator on a hornady caliper i noticed i was getting different seating depths by about .003 to .006 every couple loads without touching my seating die. i went back to my ELDX load and went through measuring 15 loads and they were all with .001 .002. anybody else see this in the berger hybrids?

all my brass is trimmed exactly the same length between every case. hornady brass 300 Win Mag

 

[dave300]

You may need a longer seating stem for your die. I suspect your bullet is topping out within the seating die stem, and IIRC, the ELDX are a shorter bullet?

 

[WYCFM1]

Eldx shorter yes

 

[nn8734]

for what’s its worth, I’ve seen .007 variance in base-ogive lengths across bullets in a box of 250 300g Berger OTM bullets (just ogive sorted these the other day) and similar variances across bullets in the 210 vld and 215 hybrid (100 ct boxes).

can we assume you are ogive-sorting your bullets before seating then measuring the loaded rounds for seating depth?

 

[smoooth1]

I just bought some 230g hybrids to load up and try out. running my hornady seating Comparator on a hornady caliper i noticed i was getting different seating depths by about .003 to .006 every couple loads without touching my seating die. i went back to my ELDX load and went through measuring 15 loads and they were all with .001 .002. anybody else see this in the berger hybrids?

all my brass is trimmed exactly the same length between every case. hornady brass 300 Win Mag

Sounds like you are measuring loaded rounds and seeing variance? Likely differences in neck tension.

 

[WYCFM1]

for what’s its worth, I’ve seen .007 variance in base-ogive lengths across bullets in a box of 250 300g Berger OTM bullets (just ogive sorted these the other day) and similar variances across bullets in the 210 vld and 215 hybrid (100 ct boxes).

can we assume you are ogive-sorting your bullets before seating then measuring the loaded rounds for seating depth?

hehe you may assume that yes..but no I did not sort them in anyway. With Berger 95-105 vlds I’ve never had this much variance so I’ve never worried about sorting. my guess is neck tension because I was using different brass from different lots all mixed together. I’m gonna restart with everything full length sized, trimmed, reamed, and cleaned.

 

[WYCFM1]

I just can’t imagine Berger having variance of .006 or more at the ogive! I don’t wanna have to sort my bullet ogives also. Man they are finicky but shoot oh so nice

 

[nn8734]

my guess is neck tension because I was using different brass from different lots all mixed together.

All bullet manufacturers have some base-ogive variability across lots but I notice it more with longer, heavier bullets vs the small/light stuff. Berger and Hornady are more consistent than Sierra. I ogive sort to eliminate that as a source of inconsistency in the final product

Using brass from different manufacturers/lots is never a good idea, as you know...that said, it is possible to arrive at the same neck tension between different brass, depending upon other things. Point is you don’t want to just guess....

Here’s what I suggest:

1) Measure base- ogive lengths until you have 10 bullets with the exact same dimension.

2) Take one of those bullets and run it into your rifle using the Hornady oal gauge and modified case to jam length, record that length

3) Prep you brass as you described above (you may also want to weight sort until you get 10 pieces within say .002 grains of each other)

4) FL Size your brass to desired cartridge-chamber headspace (bolt guns, I do .001-.002)

5) Measure for run out and neck wall thickness if you a concentricity gauge and neck wall gauge.

6) Take all other measurements required for determining neck tension

7) adjust your seater die based on desired starting jump using the jam length recorded earlier (I start Berger target hybrids at .005”)

8) Prime, Charge and seat your bullets, measuring for neck tension - I usually shoot for .002“-.003“

9) Take a final case head-to-ogive measurement with your comparator to see if you have any material differences in seating depth across the 10 loaded rounds...measure for bullet run out using the concentricity gauge if applicable.

Any variance > .001 across all 10 would have to be attributed to something other than your components and process since you would have adequately controlled for raw materials and process variance. This is when I would consider buying a vld seating stem for your die, pulling and reseating them with the VLD stem to see if that solves the problem.

Others may chime in with addl tips as well.

Good luck with it!

 

[Steel head]

Hmmm.
a hairs width or two of difference.
So I assume your loads shoot like crap now?

 

[918v]

Some loads have a broad powder charge node but a narrow seating depth node. Others are the opposite. A real good load has a broad charge weight and seating depth node. You have to map this out using .1gr and .005” increments.