How accurate is accurate enough?

[vmwerks]

I am back from vacation and was able to get my XL650 dialed in. I am reloading .45 first and have a load I am trying. My question has to do with OAL and powder weight. The OAL is supposed to be 1.275, I am ending up between 1.275 and 1.273. Powder weight is 6.3gr of Bullseye, it comes out between 6.1 and 6.4. How accurate is accurate enough? I've only used a single stage in the past where we measured every gr and OAL before crimping.

TIA!

[ojisan]

I use AA5 and my Dillon 550 drops a nearly identical charge weight every time.
Maybe a different powder would meter better....that seems like a lot of variation.
A few thouands variation on OAL won't matter one way or the other.
Trying to get things the same every time is aways good for accuracy.

But the question is: how accurate do you need it?
Shooting bullseye one handed? (you need super accurate ammo).
Blasting water jugs at 20 yards? (anything will do)
Run 'n' gun at steel plates? (need moderate accuracy but also 100% reliability).

I would start with a powder that meters consistently, then play around with bullet weights and shapes to find out what your gun likes best and what is acceptable to you for your kind of shooting.

[popeye4]

I disassembled my powder measure and polished the interior surfaces with a Foredom tool (Dremel will also work). You can get it to look like a mirror if you go fine enough on the polish, but that's overkill. It seemed to help in the consistency department.

[vmwerks]

Thansk for the information ojisan. Run and gun accuracy is good enough for me this go around. If I were going for accuracy alone I'd hand measure the powder anyway. I'll check through my powder bars since I have 2 extra and see if one works better than the other. I also noticed the powder check die will "cling" some powder out of the casing. I've measured before and after but it isn't enough to change the scaled weight.

[AG166]

Your very close with the OAL according to your data. I wouldn't sweat a thousandth of an inch. The true way to get the same consistent cartridge is by trimming each case identically, the weight of the case, the weight of the bullet, primer pocket size, seating depth, and probably 10 other things that need to be exact. It can drive you crazy when trying to make things identical.
As for the powder throw and the variance in the powder weight, I'd call Dillon, and let them know it is not throwing a consistent power charge. They will probably send you a new one free of charge. I know on my 550, the max allowable tolerance for the powder throw was +/- 1/10th of a grain. Bet your glad you bought a Dillon. I've always made 1 phone call and my problem(s) were fixed.
Good luck with it.

[Dark Mod]

Your very close with the OAL according to your data. I wouldn't sweat a thousandth of an inch. The true way to get the same consistent cartridge is by trimming each case identically, the weight of the case, the weight of the bullet, primer pocket size, seating depth, and probably 10 other things that need to be exact. It can drive you crazy when trying to make things identical.
As for the powder throw and the variance in the powder weight, I'd call Dillon, and let them know it is not throwing a consistent power charge. They will probably send you a new one free of charge. I know on my 550, the max allowable tolerance for the powder throw was +/- 1/10th of a grain. Bet your glad you bought a Dillon. I've always made 1 phone call and my problem(s) were fixed.
Good luck with it.

Makes me wish i bought a dillon...

[21SF]

6.3 bulls eye

185gr I hope.....

[theduece]

Buy once cry once.... Back to the topic on hand. Your powder drop is not setup correctly, whenever I've used Bullseye in The past it drops +/- .1 grain variance max. Typically it will drop say I'm going for 5.6 grains out of 10 weighed 2 will be off on average. Off to me is either 5.5 or 5.7 anything more or less is unacceptable.

Your .002 OAL varaince sounds GTG

[theduece]

A few things off the top of my head to check,

powder failsafe return rod make sure it is adjusted correctly
clean powder drop make sure no oil/grease

[Bill Steele]

I agree with others, .1gr +/- is about right.

For a powder like Bullseye, I usually get extremely consistent drops measuring the same drop after drop. I use the +/- .1gr as the outer limit from some of the larger extruded pistol powders like VV-N340, which do not meter quite as well as BE, W231 or the smaller extruded powders like VV-3N37. For the larger extruded rifle powders, I trickle up as no drop I have used will get me where I want.

I also agree to make sure all the oil is off everything.

[vmwerks]

Thanks everyone - the system is completely new so there may be some issues with lube. I'll double check - and yes 185gr JHP

[dholla]

I found with a little fine grease on the roller bearing under the shell plate helped with the powder jumping out of the case from stage 3 to 4.

[Whiterabbit]

I am back from vacation and was able to get my XL650 dialed in. I am reloading .45 first and have a load I am trying. My question has to do with OAL and powder weight. The OAL is supposed to be 1.275, I am ending up between 1.275 and 1.273. Powder weight is 6.3gr of Bullseye, it comes out between 6.1 and 6.4. How accurate is accurate enough? I've only used a single stage in the past where we measured every gr and OAL before crimping.

TIA!

you loaded up how many? several hundred, all in this spread? Here's an idea.

Take a random grab bag of 50 or so, use a pistol rest, and shoot them all at 25 yards. If they group in the black (or equivalent), try again at 50 yards.

How accurate do you want to be?

----------

So! if they are NOT accurate, and a similar test with a box of factory stuff you know your gun likes shoots way better, then start tightening up your stuff. First thing I would tighten is powder charge. "They" always say that's first order, and the biggest thing that will affect you. I don't have the experience to advise farther, but if I were lacking other advice, I personally would then go down the line: bullet seat depth, crimp strength, brass length, etc as I found it.

But I wouldn't do ANY of that if I met my accuracy goal on paper. If I wanted minute-of-scary-bear at 15 yards off-hand and this load satisfied that need or better, I wouldn't go chasing ghosts. If I wanted clovers at 15 and got minute-of-bear, I'd start looking at what I can improve.

[vmwerks]

you loaded up how many? several hundred, all in this spread? Here's an idea.

Take a random grab bag of 50 or so, use a pistol rest, and shoot them all at 25 yards. If they group in the black (or equivalent), try again at 50 yards.

How accurate do you want to be?

----------

So! if they are NOT accurate, and a similar test with a box of factory stuff you know your gun likes shoots way better, then start tightening up your stuff. First thing I would tighten is powder charge. "They" always say that's first order, and the biggest thing that will affect you. I don't have the experience to advise farther, but if I were lacking other advice, I personally would then go down the line: bullet seat depth, crimp strength, brass length, etc as I found it.

But I wouldn't do ANY of that if I met my accuracy goal on paper. If I wanted minute-of-scary-bear at 15 yards off-hand and this load satisfied that need or better, I wouldn't go chasing ghosts. If I wanted clovers at 15 and got minute-of-bear, I'd start looking at what I can improve.

Accuracy as in OAL and powder draw

[Whiterabbit]

Yeah, I understood that, and wasn't clear in my writing, sorry about that!

I needed to open by saying:

"I understand that you are asking about tightening the spread in your powder charges (and OAL), but the first thing I would be asking myself is: "Is that even needed?" There are folks here who say their accuracy on paper at the range depends on accuracy to the .1gr for their load (aka charge sensitive shooting accuracy), and there are people here who like ot brag that they've got their load developed to the point where they can have a relatively huge variance in powder charge and result in no change in accuracy on paper! (aka charge insensitive shooting accuracy).

therefore, before I went chasing potential ghosts with respect to load process, I'd test what I have and see if there is even a need!"

Then insert my post after that.

Thanks for letting me clarify!