How do you load rifle Ammo?

[NorCalFocus]

[Khromo]

I watched a terrific video that G. David Tubb made some years ago. For me, it was like listening to a burning bush!

He said the most important element of case prep was neck turning. Period. He was pretty clear about that. If you are going to do any case prep at all, turn the necks, according to the most decorated shooter of our time.

He threw charges from a measure for short course and offhand practice, but he could throw very accurately, within about a tenth if I remember correctly. A lot of benchrest shooters believe that +/- 0.1 grain is not material. I give those guys great credence.

He also used a concentricity gauge after the bullets were seated, dividing his loaded rounds by runout. Less than 4 thousandths went in the good pile for long range matches, more than 4 were used for practice and short ranges.

Finding your perfect compromise between precision and convenience is different for everybody. For me, about 0.75 MOA comes fairly easily using top shelf brass and Sierra MatchKings. Getting down below 0.5 MOA requires that I sweat every chicken**** detail until I start to pee blood.

The best advise I ever heard for how to streamline the process was to sort bullets by price!

[Jimmy's]

Leave out the flash hole uniforming, leave out the 2nd wet tumble, leave out the drill and do by hand.
You should only need to check OAL one time.
IMO

[hambam105]

How do I reload rifle ammunition?

Easy. One at a time.

[doyouevenchop]

I just "invested" in a wet tumbler, so I'll try it out and see if primer pocket cleaning helps tighten up my groups; I already get 10 shot 1 MOA groups for 308, but I want to get down to ~.75

I don't precision trim or turn necks or anything. Just FL size with a shoulder bump of 0.002-0.003" and try to get consistent primer seating depth and bullet seating.

I have never uniformed flash holes, cleaned primer pockets, or sorted anything by size/weight/etc.

In my scientific opinion, the margin of improvement possible from doing those time-intensive activities is significantly less than the margin of improvement possible by working on shooting fundamentals.

[tonyjr]

Primer pocket build up can cause non center seating of primer .
Flash hole dabre build up / non round holes can change flame to go
in wrong direction .
Since duck hunters are about the only ones who shoot up [ powder equally around sides ] it may not matter .

[LynnJr]

Start off with new virgin brass.
Add primer add powder add bullet and shoot it.
Deprime and tumble in walnut shell.
Full length size with 0.001 shoulder bump then trim to a uniform length. Neck turn the brass.
Chamfer the neck inside and outside then uniform primer pockets and flashhole.
Weigh the brass and segregate into 1 grain batches.
If you have a Juenke machine sort the brass.
Add primer powder seat bullet and fire.
Re-prep everything as you did earlier.
Now everything is ready for a match so weigh every component to the smallest possible variation. Brass,primers,powder and bullets.
Seat all your bullets 0.030 long and do your final seating the night before the match. Seating depth should be within 0.001 powder should be within a kernel primers should be exactly the same weight as should bullets. Brass can vary up to a full grain.

[3DGearGuy]

[17+1]

1) tumble
2) full length size
3) trim (as required)
4) chamfer/deburr (as required)
5) tumble (can move this to end if you’re using lube that won’t degrade powder)
6) prime
7) powder and bullet

Shoots better than I do if I use good components.

[kcstott]

Extra brass prep will not show up till you are competing in international benchrest and shooting high tens to low hundreds. (i.e. groups that range from .080" to .130")

With crap brass and good bullets and attention to powder charge you can get groups in the sub moa range quite easily.

This is not scientific stats but i'd guess about 85% of your rifles accuracy outside of the barrel is the quality of the bullet and the consistency in the powder charge. Brass becomes and issue with inconsistent powder capacity creating inconsistent pressures and therefor inconsistent velocities. Neck tension becomes an issue as well and this can be solved by using a bushing die for the most part but with slight inconsistency in neck wall thicknesses, this is where neck turning comes in to play. Neck turning creates uniform wall thicknesses and therefor uniform neck tension and it also reduces bullet runout assuming the ID was concentric to the axis of the case.

That said there is also the point of sorting bullets by weight, then buy bearing surface, meplat trimming and tipping for higher BC's, weight sorting of brass, benchrest primers, using and arbor press and benchrest dies. the rabbit hole runs as deep as you like. but for 99% of us it comes down to quality brass with a quality bullet and a good amount of attention to detail. Match grade ammo can be made on non match loading gear. it just depends on the match you are shooting.

I see more vertical stringing from the temp rise throughout the day and guys leaving their ammo boxes in the sun then anything else, Also chambering a round in a hot chamber, don't do it till you are ready to fire. that heat in the chamber will soak in the brass and warm your powder causing a higher velocity. I run a sled in my f class matches, i set a round on the sled bolt open. get pretty close to lined up natural point of aim and all that rebuild my position as needed. then chamber the round make my final adjustment and press the trigger at my natural respiratory pause.
If i'm lucky and didn't pull the shot, read the wind right, I should be in the 10 ring. but I'm working on that I shout a 9.2 point average right now.