Maximum and minimum coal for lead handgun ammo

[Dustyman]

just a personal preference I suppose of not wanting to mess about with calipers , hence the quick fixed length gauges and the question about the max and min tolerances before starting to get in the realms of either being unsafe or less accurate . I had thought about doing my own tests with seating less and more into case to see when accuracy varied but thought id ask first . ill see , Thanks for input though .

[bradaz11]

so instead of just doing up a locknut at a set (variable) distance. you instead want to make up some gauges to a fine tolerance, for each caliber?

thats the bit i don't understand - not having a moan, you can do whatever you are happiest with

[Dougan]

No wind up but I think I must be putting this over wrong . When using a progressive press it throws the finished cartridge out into a tray , the whole point being I can fly thro a load of rounds quickly as there's less manual work so I use these presses for my pistol caliber s I'm not taking every round out by hand and wanting to measure each and since the loading is done quite quickly , I don't want to be catching each round and checking it . I'm more than happy with the 7-8 tho variation in what I make but if something is not quite right and for some reason the press or i do something wrong I don't want to carry on merrily making a hundred or more rounds to then find something is wrong and have to sit down with the kinetic hammer for the nigbt stripping them . So rather than measuring every say Every tenth by vernier I wanted to make a fixed go / no go . So what tolerance above the 7-8 difference should I Make these guages to or should use that 7-8 variation as my tolerance . Hope that's clearer ,

There's an even quicker way to check than calipers or some sort of gauge...just look at the finished round.

The 6 or 7 thou variation will come from differences in the bullet shape (or a bit of excess lube) - for there to be a larger error than this, the crimp will be in the wrong place relative to where you normally put it into the cannelure...

...so even a 10/20 thou difference will be visually obvious...if you don't trust me on this; try deliberately seating one 20 thou too deep and one 20 thou too shallow and look at the difference...

[Dustyman]

There's nowt wrong with the dies, they are all locked up , !!

I just want to sit at the press pull the lever , do lots of rounds and every so often on about the seventh or eighth take one out check the length just in case something is going wrong. it's just a quality control thing and all I thought I could do was instead of using a vernier was just have a simple go no-go gauge that I could fabricate myself in the lathe or on the Miller so instead of having to actually measure and check that I could just offer the random round up to the gauges and see if they fitted or not . The bullets in use are lubricated and sometimes I found the lube comes off shears off and can accumulate on the tip of the bullet or end up pushing up into the die . as a consequence it reduces the cartridge overall length . Also if something has come loose all gone wrong I will only made seven or eight heated cartridges before the next check therefore I don't have to spend the whole night disassembling all of them if I leave the checks until the end of making 50 or 100 heated cartridges before the next check therefore I don't have to spend the whole night disassembling all of them if I leave the checks until the end of making 50 or 100 . So the question about the tolerance I'll go back to was asking what would be the best plus or minus for the go no-go before it is likely to affect either safety or accuracy , nothing to do with the current round and its accuracy or inaccuracy nothing to do with whether or not I understand about doing up the die . I was merely trying to make simple quality-control item that I didn't have to read off I could just offer the completed cartridge up to and just double check every so often if everything was within tolerance . The question being what was that tolerance

[Dustyman]

Ok ta

[Mike357]

I know some of the best GR shooters in the country I can't think of one that wants to do what you want to do, well there's maybe one

Load them and shoot them. I haven't measured a finished round in 4 years and that's maybe 6-8000 rounds of 44 without any perceivable problem.

[Dustyman]

Good news then , maybe ill start a new trend :-) many thanks to all for info and opinions ,