Posted: Sep 4th 2010, 08:48 AM
The little trick of making up a dummy round and seating it slightly out works well, Then close it in the rifle's action, Just use your dummy to set the seater, Then another +002(Deeper) "in" the press, Your dummy will now be your gauge to set your seater, They used to call it : "Smoking the bullet" because you'd want to darken the bullet up a bit to see where/If the lands contacted the bullet, Magic marker works well too, Don't think you need to cut slots in the case neck.....It's almost impossible with HP bullets to judge this properly with a standard OAL gauge or Calibers due to the way the bullet's tips are formed, Also different brands of bullets give different results.....It's the method I've been using, Don't own any mics or comparator(Yet), I use a sharpie to index the settings on the die and press so I don't lose them.
Also just as Pyro sez get yourself a set of brass and dedicate it to THAT rifle, It will fire form to your chamber and all that's needed is to resize the case necks, There are die sets made just for neck sizing, Keeping your brass "Prepped" is a whole nother chapter.
Done right you can tailor your ammo to be far superior to any commercial ammo...My current favorite .308 loading is with a 168 SMK, Mil Brass, and 41.5 grains IMR 4895 for use in Garands going around 2555 FPS, I've tried this in my bolt action with 42.0 grains at 2591 FPS, and 42.5 grains at 2633 FPS where I feel the load is topping out with recoil and muzzle flash........Keep in mind that Mil-Spec cases means less case volume so they should be loaded down at least 5% of any published data - Then worked up, Commercial cases have more case volume and less brass in the web area, Military brass is just made thicker in that area to handle more stress.
