Monday, February 21, 2022

One of the things I've been messing with with .45-70 is resizing

The easiest thing is to full-length resize the cases; that way they'll be sure to drop into the chamber easily after firing.

When using the cases in only one rifle, the competition types often either don't resize at all(maybe bell the case mouth just enough to make it easy to seat the bullet when using black powder, then use the sizing die to iron out that bell so it'll chamber easily), or, if you want some neck tension on the bullets, resize only about the first 1/2" of the cases.

If you've got more than one rifle in that cartridge, if you do one of the latter you have to keep the cases segregated, because an unsized/partially sized case from one may not fit in the other chamber, or be very tight.

I originally tried using the partial-sizing method, because with the unsized, unless you do a taper crimp(which you can using the sizing die to do) to hold it the bullet can damn well fall out of the case.  And, this being with black powder, you cannot have any space between powder and bullet.  Fill in all the wads or whatever, but NO EMPTY SPACE, because bad things will happen.  So I don't care how many shooters with very good scores do it, I want to be certain the bullet won't move, so partial-size and then a light crimp- just enough to it chambers easily- it was.

So I've been experimenting with full-length resizing, to see if the loads shoot any better or worse.  So far it's a wash in that, with one possible exception, FL seems to work just as well.  And yes, a lot of high-ranking shooters do it.  This is literally one of those "Which does your rifle like?" things.  So I'll probably stick with FL sizing, and be sure to anneal the case mouth area regularly to relieve the greater stress put on the area.


2 comments:

polimath said...

I watched an interview of the top Long Range Precision Champ at Shot Show. The number # question he was asked all the time was "Do you full length or neck size your ammo. He said Full Length Size every time. Take it for what it's worth. In this game there are tons of superstitious critters who swear on a bible "their way" is the gospel. Probably the same kind of thinking of those mobsters who used to rub fresh garlic on their bullets.

Country Boy said...

I participated in a long range match at Whittington Center a few years ago. It was a side match at a Cowboy Action event. One of the shooters used a single piece of brass for the entire side match. Each time he fired, he'd adjust his sights, and reload his brass. He set the length with a micrometer. By the third shot, he was hitting the center of a life size bear at 1000 meters. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Consistency is the most important part of reloading. Identical pieces of brass (same manufacturer, weighed, and measured), identical lead (also the same manufacturer, weighed and measured), and a precise measure of powder (guess what). Find out what gives you the best group, write it down, and stick with it. What works for one might be a starting point, but it isn't going to be universal.