I do them exactly the same. I don’t jam my bullets and I don’t neck size only so I won’t have any issues.
The loads arent what’s tight. It’s the action tolerances of a bench gun vs a field action.
I apologize, I brought up F-class and Benchresh in response to "Target Loads" ~ I just wanted to be clear that not all target loads are field worthy. I should not have, I think it confused the topic.
Digging myself deeper into that hole:
At bigger BR events, you'll see some of the guys loading on the bench (or at home) with turned only neck chambers using - neck sizing only. Their
dies are often custom reamed to decrease the tolerances of the load... closing the bolt can be tough.. It is both tight actions and low or no bump, with brass sized to a tight tolerance for some of the competitors. You'll occasionally also see guys using their hammer not only to size the necks and seat, but to open the bolt. Imaging a bit sand in that mix.
Some also let the lands finish the seating. If one uses the same low neck tension uses in soft seating, extraction of a live round can be a huge issue in the field by potentially leaving the bullet in the barrel and powered in the trigger.
Some of us over the years have tried to get fancy and copied 99% of the BR reloading stuff, running
low NT BUT, with Jump.... Only to
find our ES was nuts. Apparently the the primer and incomplete ignition started moving the bullets that otherwise would have been hard jammed allowing the combustion to be more consistent. Another issue, was the bullets in the magazines, moved in recoil on the magnums. The point is field guns should indeed be reloaded differently than what bleeding edge Benchrest or F-class guys might be doing.
As a side note:
Over the years I have gone nuts trying to find low SD/ES on BR reloading tools and techniques, Bench-source annealer, Wilson micrometer arbor dies, Abor presses with force indicators, 21st century, K&M, Sartorius Balances, ultrasonics, micrometer trimers.... the list goes on.. I've loaded and documented a ton of loads to try to isolate were the velocity spreads come from.. had a lot of failures, some some good stuff.. Most was driven by an ELR passion.
With all that stuff, I still made some really crappy ammo... And with just a Rock Chucker, also made some good stuff.
The only thing I found or real value, is that the
largest impact on good or bad reloads, is the
managing consistent neck tension between your rounds and knowing what it is. There are several strategies for this, Use an Arbor press with seating force indictor to sort loaded rounds, use new brass, sort brass, anneal, neck turn, low NT and Jam or just use more NT like most of us do for our field guns..
I am not in anyway suggesting that I am the end all be all, just that I spend way to many resources only to find that maybe in our field game (not BR) there is a clear line of diminishing returns. Maybe I can save someone for repeating the years, $ and time I've wasted.
The truth is, you don't need all that stuff to make very good ammo.. Heck today with my son shooting more, I am just shooting mostly factory Prime. I am in the "good enough" camp,
it is me that misses.
Jim
