Precision Reloading

[Broc]

I like the videos this guy makes. I posted one about sizing not long ago.

I am curious to see what some NES members think about this. I know some of you weight every brass, others say that not cleaning the brass helps ... Maybe everything helps?


View: https://youtu.be/6VEMZJYovMA

 

[mac1911]

What ever that 6” node between your ears thinks works , you do it.
For me Im never going to own anything or have the range time to get under 1/2 moa Consistently.
I only know of 1 person who shoot long range and he will come down set up his crazy sled/rifle and basically shoot at 1/4” dots on paper. Most days he will hit 10 plus dots in row.

In the end it depends on what works.
I shoot a lot of old worn military stuff and the biggest gain in accuracy has been using better bullets.
I have to really work at holding MOA
My most accurate rifle is s 1” heavy barrel AR with a 8x36x52 scope the best I have done is hitting 17 1” dots in row. Im not spending berger $$$ or Lapua brass $$$ unless I have a more worthy barrel to burn them through.

A lot of older shooters I know have his mentality though Keep itvsimple

 

[Howland]

While I am a strong proponent of the KISS principle and if you pay attention to the basics you should be able to come up with something really good, this is like Tom Brady saying, "Throw to where only your guy can catch it. Kick the PAT. Repeat. Win."

Still, if he can regularly shoot 1/4 MOA, I should probably subscribe.

 

[Tackdriver VillenTactical]

I'm not sure what to make of the video. This gentleman has found a technique/system that works for him. I spend no time thinking about harmonics or bc. (Though most of my shooting isn't very far, 300 yards or less.). And very little time thinking about combustion. I always use Lapua brass and Federal GMM primers, so my focus is finding the right bullet and powder combination and then consistent shooting technique.

Dave

 

[76Too]

His videos are some of the most informative i've come across. This guy is pretty good too...



My own personal method to date is just to find a load that works and get out and shoot more with it. I just started reloading for the 6.5cm bolt gun, so maybe my methods will change a little more, but I doubt i'll ever get into weighing cases/confirming water volume/concentricity gauges. That said, I think the bushing dies have some real teeth to them...just not sure I want to buy MORE dies...I have so damn many as is. I'll probably stick to FL/NS for the foreseeable future.

As far as cleaning goes, I'm a minimal dry tumble only kinda guy...it's fast/easy/effective and doesn't require a dehydrator/oven/or a hot and sunny day to dry off your brass.

 

[greencobra]

i'm a minimalist reloader. my buddies call me lazy. while others were doing weeks of case prep and load development when i shot ihmsa, i just wanted my load to be consistent enough to hit a 2 foot square at 100 meters. again my buddies were comedians saying i strived for foa perfection. that was "foot of angle." the chronograph was my friend cause i agree with this guy...your loads need to be consistent. we chased that decent standard deviation. this was for a xp pistol and contender, barrel length 14". never shot that perfect 40 but had a ton of 39's. i wonder sometimes if i went that extra bit of prep would i have gotten that 40. but all my case prep pals were mid 20's at best.

i don't think i've ever trimmed a case in my life. i'll tumble and i ream the primer pocket of carbon so the primers seat evenly hopefully every time. i set the primers with a hand tool, i like to feel when they bottom into the pocket instead of crushing them with the press handle. so this primer ritual is my thing to try to get consistent ignition. of course i don't do that if i'm bulk loading range ammo using a progressive press.

once i tried to measure the case capacity, you know, weighing the amount of water the case held. i did 2 and said f*** this. same with neck thickness. if anything glares out at me i just cull the case from the herd.

i think @mac1911 said it above...it's between your ears.

 

[mac1911]

i'm a minimalist reloader. my buddies call me lazy. while others were doing weeks of case prep and load development when i shot ihmsa, i just wanted my load to be consistent enough to hit a 2 foot square at 100 meters. again my buddies were comedians saying i strived for foa perfection. that was "foot of angle." the chronograph was my friend cause i agree with this guy...your loads need to be consistent. we chased that decent standard deviation. this was for a xp pistol and contender, barrel length 14". never shot that perfect 40 but had a ton of 39's. i wonder sometimes if i went that extra bit of prep would i have gotten that 40. but all my case prep pals were mid 20's at best.

i don't think i've ever trimmed a case in my life. i'll tumble and i ream the primer pocket of carbon so the primers seat evenly hopefully every time. i set the primers with a hand tool, i like to feel when they bottom into the pocket instead of crushing them with the press handle. so this primer ritual is my thing to try to get consistent ignition. of course i don't do that if i'm bulk loading range ammo using a progressive press.

once i tried to measure the case capacity, you know, weighing the amount of water the case held. i did 2 and said f*** this. same with neck thickness. if anything glares out at me i just cull the case from the herd.

i think @mac1911 said it above...it's between your ears.

There was a old david tubb video on how he loaded for palma match. On the lines of this guy.
I will listen and watch anyone who shows it works down range.

 

[Mountain]

Every once in a while I like to mess around with benchrest shooting to see what I can get out of what I have and have tried the flash hole reaming, brass sorting, neck turning, etc. I can get a couple of my most accurate rifles consistently below 1/2 MOA with super careful loading techniques but otherwise pretty much follow this guy's technique to get the best I can for everyday match shooting.

I buy ammo in Lapua brass when I can find it at a reasonable price. I think I've had to trim one or two batches of Lapua .30-06 brass once each and have ran it a few cycles since and it stays pretty much at the same case length. I'm using Imperial sizing wax and I think that helps preserve the life of the brass. I don't prep flash holes and I stopped cleaning primer pockets too. I try to find loads with a low SD / ES and agree that a chrony can save time and ammo cost. I do use other makes of brass but they are always more work than Lapua. I find PPU brass to be OK, but it definitely needs more trimming. Lake City a little better than PPU but still requires more trimming. I think my second favorite brass to recycle comes from the HXP Greek surplus ammo. It's pretty solid stuff though not as accurate as the Lapua.

I agree that Bergers are best for consistency. For the military match stuff I'll sometimes load nice bullets but mostly I have a good stock of Nosler CC blems and bulk Midwest 'Match Monsters' which are house brand bulk Nosler CC's. I'll shoot Sierra SMK's occasionally, but their weights, lengths, and meplats vary too much for the money in my opinion. Sierra TMK's (tipped match kings) though more expensive are worth the money and are very consistent. If I see them on sale I'll buy them.

For powder I use Varget in any larger caliber and Benchmark in the small stuff. I could use Varget in .223 but Benchmark meters so much easier than does Varget.

 

[mac1911]

Every once in a while I like to mess around with benchrest shooting to see what I can get out of what I have and have tried the flash hole reaming, brass sorting, neck turning, etc. I can get a couple of my most accurate rifles consistently below 1/2 MOA with super careful loading techniques but otherwise pretty much follow this guy's technique to get the best I can for everyday match shooting.

I buy ammo in Lapua brass when I can find it at a reasonable price. I think I've had to trim one or two batches of Lapua .30-06 brass once each and have ran it a few cycles since and it stays pretty much at the same case length. I'm using Imperial sizing wax and I think that helps preserve the life of the brass. I don't prep flash holes and I stopped cleaning primer pockets too. I try to find loads with a low SD / ES and agree that a chrony can save time and ammo cost. I do use other makes of brass but they are always more work than Lapua. I find PPU brass to be OK, but it definitely needs more trimming. Lake City a little better than PPU but still requires more trimming. I think my second favorite brass to recycle comes from the HXP Greek surplus ammo. It's pretty solid stuff though not as accurate as the Lapua.

I agree that Bergers are best for consistency. For the military match stuff I'll sometimes load nice bullets but mostly I have a good stock of Nosler CC blems and bulk Midwest 'Match Monsters' which are house brand bulk Nosler CC's. I'll shoot Sierra SMK's occasionally, but their weights, lengths, and meplats vary too much for the money in my opinion. Sierra TMK's (tipped match kings) though more expensive are worth the money and are very consistent. If I see them on sale I'll buy them.

For powder I use Varget in any larger caliber and Benchmark in the small stuff. I could use Varget in .223 but Benchmark meters so much easier than does Varget.

Im actually going over board on my 308 for the next cmp match. Will it help ? I can never tell if its me or the ammo that did better on a match. I have shot trinket worthy scores with bulk 55 223 and tanked with "match" ammo.
So for S&G's 308 for cmp match for the RockOla M1a
Brass been using the same R&P (remington peters) through this rifle for some time. Its what I have the most head stamp in.

Brass R&P deprimed trimmed and weight sorted to +/- 1 grain. Thats as tight as I could get and have enough brass for the match.
Bullet- Nosler 168 custom comps, not blems. also weighed out---almost a waste of time. noslers for me have been very very consistent I dont think I have weighed anything over .3 grains +/-
no problem finding 35 that where dead nuts 168, base to ogive is also very very consistent- but i did not bother with this batch. I dont bother measuring bullet base to tip.
powder ? thats where Im torn. Im tempted to use something I have not. I do this alot with the garand a different load each match for fun.
powders are H4895, Varget , N150 , RL15 ?
Primers FGMM
basically I will load them to about 2650 fps and rely on load data to get there. I dont have time to do crony test.

 

[Mountain]

Im actually going over board on my 308 for the next cmp match. Will it help ? I can never tell if its me or the ammo that did better on a match. I have shot trinket worthy scores with bulk 55 223 and tanked with "match" ammo.
So for S&G's 308 for cmp match for the RockOla M1a
Brass been using the same R&P (remington peters) through this rifle for some time. Its what I have the most head stamp in.

Brass R&P deprimed trimmed and weight sorted to +/- 1 grain. Thats as tight as I could get and have enough brass for the match.
Bullet- Nosler 168 custom comps, not blems. also weighed out---almost a waste of time. noslers for me have been very very consistent I dont think I have weighed anything over .3 grains +/-
no problem finding 35 that where dead nuts 168, base to ogive is also very very consistent- but i did not bother with this batch. I dont bother measuring bullet base to tip.
powder ? thats where Im torn. Im tempted to use something I have not. I do this alot with the garand a different load each match for fun.
powders are H4895, Varget , N150 , RL15 ?
Primers FGMM
basically I will load them to about 2650 fps and rely on load data to get there. I dont have time to do crony test.

Nice. M1A grudge match this month, LOL? Loser has to tell the Spaghetti King to speed up in the pits?

The .308 Lapua brass I'll use won't be trimmed nor sorted. No sorting of the 155 TMK's either. I will use CCI BR primers as I have a good stock of those. Mag length seating. Varget powder as usual. Excepting use of TMK's instead of Bergers, this is along the lines of the guy's video posted by @Broccoli Iglesias

 

[mac1911]

Nice. M1A grudge match this month, LOL? Loser has to tell the Spaghetti King to speed up in the pits?

The .308 Lapua brass I'll use won't be trimmed nor sorted. No sorting of the 155 TMK's either. I will use CCI BR primers as I have a good stock of those. Mag length seating. Varget powder as usual. Excepting use of TMK's instead of Bergers, this is along the lines of the guy's video posted by @Broccoli Iglesias

my normal route for loading for cmp

inspect brass, FL resize with a -.003" average should bump ( I have my dies locked ringed and wrench tight into the hornady bushings I have not check them since day one) I set my Caliper to max case length. I will toss anything over into a "need to be trimmed" bucket. Grab a handful of bullets , check a few drops on the powder measure to see that I am in the target zone for the cal Im loading. Using H4895 for everything at the moment so thats 44-46 grains for the 30-06 and 40-42 grains for the 308.....yes they will all hit the ten ring with a 2 grain swing with my zero IF I can get my brain, eyes, and boogah hook in sync.

Its all good and fun..... Its a 3 moa ten ring (3.34x) moa to be more precise. Ten ring is a very good day for me. No real need to get to crazy. A decent lot of HXP and a decent service grade rifle can get you there. My goal each match is to try and keep them all in the black. Do that and your minimum score will be 270

 

[akma]

Im actually going over board on my 308 for the next cmp match. Will it help ? I can never tell if its me or the ammo that did better on a match. I have shot trinket worthy scores with bulk 55 223 and tanked with "match" ammo.
So for S&G's 308 for cmp match for the RockOla M1a
Brass been using the same R&P (remington peters) through this rifle for some time. Its what I have the most head stamp in.

Brass R&P deprimed trimmed and weight sorted to +/- 1 grain. Thats as tight as I could get and have enough brass for the match.
Bullet- Nosler 168 custom comps, not blems. also weighed out---almost a waste of time. noslers for me have been very very consistent I dont think I have weighed anything over .3 grains +/-
no problem finding 35 that where dead nuts 168, base to ogive is also very very consistent- but i did not bother with this batch. I dont bother measuring bullet base to tip.
powder ? thats where Im torn. Im tempted to use something I have not. I do this alot with the garand a different load each match for fun.
powders are H4895, Varget , N150 , RL15 ?
Primers FGMM
basically I will load them to about 2650 fps and rely on load data to get there. I dont have time to do crony test.

Every once in a while I like to mess around with benchrest shooting to see what I can get out of what I have and have tried the flash hole reaming, brass sorting, neck turning, etc. I can get a couple of my most accurate rifles consistently below 1/2 MOA with super careful loading techniques but otherwise pretty much follow this guy's technique to get the best I can for everyday match shooting.

I buy ammo in Lapua brass when I can find it at a reasonable price. I think I've had to trim one or two batches of Lapua .30-06 brass once each and have ran it a few cycles since and it stays pretty much at the same case length. I'm using Imperial sizing wax and I think that helps preserve the life of the brass. I don't prep flash holes and I stopped cleaning primer pockets too. I try to find loads with a low SD / ES and agree that a chrony can save time and ammo cost. I do use other makes of brass but they are always more work than Lapua. I find PPU brass to be OK, but it definitely needs more trimming. Lake City a little better than PPU but still requires more trimming. I think my second favorite brass to recycle comes from the HXP Greek surplus ammo. It's pretty solid stuff though not as accurate as the Lapua.

I agree that Bergers are best for consistency. For the military match stuff I'll sometimes load nice bullets but mostly I have a good stock of Nosler CC blems and bulk Midwest 'Match Monsters' which are house brand bulk Nosler CC's. I'll shoot Sierra SMK's occasionally, but their weights, lengths, and meplats vary too much for the money in my opinion. Sierra TMK's (tipped match kings) though more expensive are worth the money and are very consistent. If I see them on sale I'll buy them.

For powder I use Varget in any larger caliber and Benchmark in the small stuff. I could use Varget in .223 but Benchmark meters so much easier than does Varget.

I've been using LC brass for .308 and 5.56 weighed to within 1 gr. Full length resize with .002-.003 bump. I deburred flash hole. Varget on both. The 5.56 is about .375 @100yds for 5 and the .308 is about .625 @100 yds for 5. I'm using 69gr match burners and 168 gr. MathMonsters or 165 gr. Nosler Ballistic tips. they both shoot exactly the same.

 

[Mountain]

I've been using LC brass for .308 and 5.56 weighed to within 1 gr. Full length resize with .002-.003 bump. I deburred flash hole. Varget on both. The 5.56 is about .375 @100yds for 5 and the .308 is about .625 @100 yds for 5. I'm using 69gr match burners and 168 gr. MathMonsters or 165 gr. Nosler Ballistic tips. they both shoot exactly the same.

Nice!

Keep in mind Mac and I are primarily shooting old wood stocked war horses. If I were competing in PRS I'd go ahead and sort brass and also would deburr the flash holes. For High Power Service Rifle I use a similar formula as the vintage CMP matches- use quality brass within max case length and don't worry about the prep. I'll use Benchmark powder carefully weighed to keep the SD in the single digits and ES in the mid to high teens. Berger 80.5 or Nosler 80 ELD's for 600 yards and Nosler CC 77's for 200 and 300 yards.

 

[mac1911]

I've been using LC brass for .308 and 5.56 weighed to within 1 gr. Full length resize with .002-.003 bump. I deburred flash hole. Varget on both. The 5.56 is about .375 @100yds for 5 and the .308 is about .625 @100 yds for 5. I'm using 69gr match burners and 168 gr. MathMonsters or 165 gr. Nosler Ballistic tips. they both shoot exactly the same.

Nice, I need to set up the scope on my M1a to see what I can do with it.
My ARs with almost any load with a scope are MOA , I shoot irons with these 99% of the time.

 

[mac1911]

Nice!

Keep in mind Mac and I are primarily shooting old wood stocked war horses. If I were competing in PRS I'd go ahead and sort brass and also would deburr the flash holes. For High Power Service Rifle I use a similar formula as the vintage CMP matches- use quality brass within max case length and don't worry about the prep. I'll use Benchmark powder carefully weighed to keep the SD in the single digits and ES in the mid to high teens. Berger 80.5 or Nosler 80 ELD's for 600 yards and Nosler CC 77's for 200 and 300 yards.

yeah I got silly with the 308 for the match on the 13th, uniform and deberr flash hole uniform flash hole. Trimmed to 2.010 , sorted , seated CC to 2.775 and decided to run 42 grains of N150, Primer FGMM

 

[akma]

Been reloading since late 70"s. Had a number of rifles and was never able to get really good accuracy. My .308 is from the early 90's medium weight barrel. It was around an inch or more at 100 yds. Not great. Since switching to Varget and minimal case prep has turned things around.

 

[mac1911]

Been reloading since late 70"s. Had a number of rifles and was never able to get really good accuracy. My .308 is from the early 90's medium weight barrel. It was around an inch or more at 100 yds. Not great. Since switching to Varget and minimal case prep has turned things around.

yeah im just bored so a chime in. I dont have much in the way of "precision" equipment 1" heavy barrel on a AR that I can sneak under 1 moa but Im not consistent enough to keep them there.
My 1903A4 clone gets close to moa. Everything else is iron sights. Sadly my 2 most accurate and consistent rifles are 22lr

 

[akma]

My AR upper is a 20 inch .936 eBay no name barrel with off the shelf inexpensive parts. Nothing expensive not even the 6-24x50 cheapo ($60) eBay scope.
I would like to add the Hornady comparator gauges are a must and have helped dial in and repeat settings. Lastly I'm using S&B primers to boot!