measuring rifling

J

Joe Portale

New member
Howdey folks,

I was reading in a book that one needs to seat a rifle bullet so that it just touches the beginning of the barrel rifling. How does one go about this? I am sure there is a wiz-bang (pun intended) ;) tool for it. But can this be done without such a tool.

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Joe Portale
Sonoran Sidewinder
Tucson, Arizona territory
 
To set the bullet depth for accuracy when it will not be fed out of the magazine remove the firing pin assembly and start with the bullet seated long. With a candle smoke the tip of the bullet including all the ogive Chamber it and extract it and observe the engraving of the rifling. Seat the next bullet a little deeper and smoke it and chamber it. And see if the rifling engraves less . Keep doing this until the rifling is engraving the smoked area but when the smoke is wiped off there is no mark on the bullet. Wipe the smoke off the bullets that were used earlier and reseat them at the present depth and continue to seat the rest of the bullets you are loading. A lot of people will advise you to use a throat gage but the above method is a lot safer on the throat and more accurate
 
Gale,

Thanks you. That your reply demonstrates that sometimes the most elegant solutions are the simplest.



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Joe Portale
Sonoran Sidewinder
Tucson, Arizona territory
 
There is an even simpler way. Take a fired case and partially neck size it. With no primer and no powder, seat the bullet of choice way out (no crimp). Chamber the round and close the bolt. Extract "round" and the bullet should be where you want it. Set the seater die accordingly.

Some folks like to seat the bullet long to engage the rifling, others don't. Both get good results. I'm not sure it makes much difference.

Jim
 
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