I have been using a Hornady OAL gauge to find distance to the lands in support of selecting seating depth.
Although it is often criticized, I found that in taking a series of measurements with the OAL gauge, it quickly became apparent which of those few that were outliers (mostly stopping at some initial resistance and not really getting to the lands) vs those that were a set of very consistent measurements which are valid and useful.
Many of you are far more experienced in popping your bolts apart may choose to use the Alex Wheeler method (vid on his website)
www.wheeleraccuracy.com
Greg Dykstra of Primal Rights has a video on a similar process to Mr. Wheeler's
But, I don't routinely take my bolts apart (probably should gain some experience with this) and as said, the OAL gauge seemed to work fairly consistently with a bit of practice.
But I just got a pre-fit barrel back and with it new and in hand (i.e. not screwed into an action), I thought it would be a good opportunity to compare the results of OAL gauge measurements with the method Cal of Precision Rifle Blog attributes to Mark Gordon of Short Action Custom (but maybe there were other earlier advocates of this method).
That vid can be found below but basically you drop a sized case into the chamber of a barrel with bullet seated long, give the base of the cartridge a couple of taps, then see if you can extract it easily using just the nail on your pinky finger. Now, of course it will be obvious when the bullet is seated very long to start as the base will be proud of the chamber. But once you get close and the case pretty much looks flush at a glance, then this pinky thing works well. Just keep increasing seating depth until you can drop the case in, give it a couple of light taps, and easily extract it with your small finger nail and can do this three times in a row (just for higher degree of validation, IMO).
That vid is here:
So, a few days ago I did both OAL and the "Mark Gordon" method and found very consistent results with both and only .004" difference in results in the two methods.
Perhaps for some types of competition (e.g. bench rest), .004" is significant, but its not to me. Not when we can easily burn the throat back .003" or more per 100 rounds. So, I'd be fine with the OAL results but with a prefit I don't think I'd have any issue with pulling the barrel and redoing the Gordon method as some significant number of rounds down the tube.
So, I'm going with the figure from the Gordon method (and by the by, I did it well more than 3 times and found it generated highly consistent results.
For most of you experts this is like reloading kindergarten but I enjoyed this little experiment and perhaps it will be valuable to to new and/or less experts shooters.
Consider it a public service message!
Cheers
Although it is often criticized, I found that in taking a series of measurements with the OAL gauge, it quickly became apparent which of those few that were outliers (mostly stopping at some initial resistance and not really getting to the lands) vs those that were a set of very consistent measurements which are valid and useful.
Many of you are far more experienced in popping your bolts apart may choose to use the Alex Wheeler method (vid on his website)
Videos | wheeleraccuracy
www.wheeleraccuracy.com
Greg Dykstra of Primal Rights has a video on a similar process to Mr. Wheeler's
But, I don't routinely take my bolts apart (probably should gain some experience with this) and as said, the OAL gauge seemed to work fairly consistently with a bit of practice.
But I just got a pre-fit barrel back and with it new and in hand (i.e. not screwed into an action), I thought it would be a good opportunity to compare the results of OAL gauge measurements with the method Cal of Precision Rifle Blog attributes to Mark Gordon of Short Action Custom (but maybe there were other earlier advocates of this method).
That vid can be found below but basically you drop a sized case into the chamber of a barrel with bullet seated long, give the base of the cartridge a couple of taps, then see if you can extract it easily using just the nail on your pinky finger. Now, of course it will be obvious when the bullet is seated very long to start as the base will be proud of the chamber. But once you get close and the case pretty much looks flush at a glance, then this pinky thing works well. Just keep increasing seating depth until you can drop the case in, give it a couple of light taps, and easily extract it with your small finger nail and can do this three times in a row (just for higher degree of validation, IMO).
That vid is here:
So, a few days ago I did both OAL and the "Mark Gordon" method and found very consistent results with both and only .004" difference in results in the two methods.
Perhaps for some types of competition (e.g. bench rest), .004" is significant, but its not to me. Not when we can easily burn the throat back .003" or more per 100 rounds. So, I'd be fine with the OAL results but with a prefit I don't think I'd have any issue with pulling the barrel and redoing the Gordon method as some significant number of rounds down the tube.
So, I'm going with the figure from the Gordon method (and by the by, I did it well more than 3 times and found it generated highly consistent results.
For most of you experts this is like reloading kindergarten but I enjoyed this little experiment and perhaps it will be valuable to to new and/or less experts shooters.
Consider it a public service message!
Cheers
Last edited:
