Has anyone tried the Forster Datum Kit

170 bucks is a lot of money for what is essentially a piece of aluminum with some holes drilled into it.
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I make datums, I purchase datums and I collect datums. All others will pay the $170.00 you mention. What a reloader could do with a few shop skills.

And then there was that senior citizen that retired from the Power and Light Company. The lights went out after he retired; the cause of the black out eluded them so they asked for his help. He obliged and sent them a bill. They were not happy with cost. His labor was hardly worth his effort but the amount of money he charged for the years of experience was considered outrageous by the P&L Co.

F. Guffey
 
Looking for opinions for those who have used it.
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I have used them, problem, there are very few members on any reloading forum that would recognize them. I do believe $170.00 dollars is a good price to pay by those that have trouble getting their hands out of their pockets and off the keyboard.

And then the next thing you should expect is improvement in the methos and or techniques concerning how the datums are used.

F. Guffey
 
It can be purchased and delivered for under $120.

I use datums and concentricity tools to improve accuracy. Been doing it for lots of years. This tool looked interesting to me.

Not trying to flame anyone but I would'd give 10 cents for any tool marked Hornady.
 
It can be purchased and delivered for under $120.

I use datums and concentricity tools to improve accuracy. Been doing it for lots of years. This tool looked interesting to me.

Not trying to flame anyone but I would'd give 10 cents for any tool marked Hornady.
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maybe you have used gages but unless you drawing a blueprint you have never used a datum and no one here has ever made one. You can make gages which use datums to measure with but a datum is not a physical object.

As far as Hornady equipment there are tens of thousands of shooters and reloaders use it every day including myself, but it's your money waste it however you wish. A hole in apiece of metal is a hole in a piece of metal.
 
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Have I used one of those? Nope but have used plenty of similar better mouse traps. This mouse trap is in a collection of other similar tools and gauges which all seem to do about the same thing. There is always a better cartridge or case gauge and a dozen manufacturers telling you why their is better than the next.

What this and similar gauges do likely will only be appreciated by quality rifles and they will not make a silk purse out of a sows ear. Unless you have carefully worked up loads using different powder and bullets, loading with standard dies off the shelf I personally see no need for stuff like this. However, some hand loaders do so you can decide if you want to pop the bucks. Unless you have already done everything humanly possible to improve your loads and your personal shooting skills, in my opinion, a waste of money. However, if your monetary situation exceeds common sense, then by all means go for it. Clearly just my take ....

Ron
 
A hole in apiece of metal is a hole in a piece of metal.
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That is progress, in the beginning reloaders though the datum was a line with an arrow pointing at and it was identified as 'the datum line' and reloaders always followed that up with "and that is how they do it" . It took years to get reloaders to consider it was a round hole and more years to understand it was a hole with a sharp edge; did they listen? NO! They continued to call the Sinclair/Hornady tool a head space gage because they had no clue what a comparator was.

Amd then there was the Willis head space gage. To me it looked like a dial indicator stand, at best it was a comparator, there is something about 'head space gage' that seems to elevate some reloaders esteem. Case head space? Case head space gage etc.

If you do not understand it, you do not understand it, in the beginning I thought reloaders believed head space gages were made on Mars because it was beyond mere humans ability to make and or understand them.

F. Guffey
 
Guffry as much as I hate to do this but I have to agree with you here

For years I used .45 and 9 mm cases to get my case length for determining shoulder setback and only bought the Hornady for getting bullet ogive readings. Later I added the case measurement gages because they were dirt cheap. What I should have done was walk over and grabbed that 9 inch piece of aluminum strap from my leftovers box and my drill bits and made myself a gage
 
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