My Procedure for Accurate Reloading of Contenders and Encores.

By HotRodAl

Chapter Two

I use the same tools that Tommy uses when loading. I like the Redding full length sizer dies to resize my cases because you can control how much you size the neck down and you are not dragging them back through an expander button and pulling the shoulder forward, that’s right, you do pull the shoulder forward somewhat when you pull the case off that expander button. On the thinner walled cases it’s a lot more. You can try this yourself if you have one of Bellm’s headspace indicators, remove the button from your dies, size a case and check it with that headspace indicator, on some of the experiments I have done it can vary as much as 1 and 1/2 thousands. This may not seem like much but when you are trying to adjust the headspace for say, 0, or .001, with accurate loadings you want every thing to be consistent, round after round. And most of these brake action guns don't like the ammo crammed against the breech face for its best performance. But sometimes there is an exception to this, but not usually. Also some barrels like as much as .001" of headspace and others like it about half this. My On Target Technologies (OTT) 6PPC seems to like the headspace around 0 to .0005 best. Then there is the question of how far to set the bullet off the lands. Most bench rest shooters now days like the bullet to be about .006 and little less off the lands for the 22 and 6mm caliber guns. The larger calibers like a little more. But again there are exceptions to this. You just have to experiment to see what your barrel likes. This OTT barrel Isn't finicky about where the bullet sets off the lands, I’m pretty sure that’s because of the way Mike cuts the chamber and lead angle, if its square with the bore and the angle is right the bullet starts straight down the bore. I like to use Wilson straight-line bullet seaters when I'm loading for the best accuracy, in an arbor press.

To prep my brass for chambers that require neck turning, you have to be willing to sacrifice 2 or 3 cases in order to get your settings correct. I like to take at least 3 cuts in order to get the neck turned to the right dimensions for my chamber. I think the 3 trimmings are best because you are taking smaller bites at a time and get a more accurate turning. What I do is turn all the brass at least 2 times making sure I'm not taking too much off, that’s where your test cases come to play. Then when you get it where you want it, turn all the cases the final time. Now here I only use a hand held neck turner, they make more accurate cuts in my opinion. I have tried the ones that you use in case length trimmers too, personally don't like them.

I use a primer pocket uniformer to uniform all primer pockets, some cases don't require much, such as Lapua cases. Then I use an inside flash hole uniformer to remove any burrs that may be there. I use the primer pocket uniformer every time after firing, this cleans the primer pockets and keeps them uniform.

Now to start with I will load, with the bullet jammed into the lands (yep that’s right) for fire forming the brass, in this procedure you keep the brass against the breech face and form it without stretching the brass at the web. After this first firing I set the sizer die to size my brass to set the headspace with the Bellm indicator. I won't go into this procedure; you can read it on Bellm’s site.

I use a Redding bench rest powder measure to throw my powder charges, then seat the bullets with a Wilson seater die in an arbor press. By the way I use bench rest primers to ignite the powder charge, I use either Federals or Remington 7 1/2 BR primers for small primer, and usually Federals in large primers. Here again try both because the powder charge you are using may like one over the other, my 6PPC OTT prefers the Federals over the Remington BR primers.

In order to set the bullet properly off the lands I will split the neck on one piece of brass, start a bullet then load the round in my gun, remove it then measure the length with a bullet comparator, such as the nut type or the ones that clamps on to a set of calipers, I use both types and they seem to be equally accurate. I do this procedure several times to make sure my measurements are the same, sometimes the bullet will stick in the lands and pull out some when its extracted. After this I will set the Wilson seater die to the desired cartridge length.

You have to experiment with all the above procedures in order to get the best performance from your loads. And also please don't take what I have said as gospel, this is just the method I use for loading accurate loads in my guns. You can get accurate loads without using my ways of loading; all I am trying to do is eliminate all the variables in my procedures. If you have never shot bench rest you may think I'm a NUT for doing all this. Well I'm a NUT then. LOL

HotRodAl

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