Precision Rifle Reloading Setup

[Graham Smith]

After picking my way through more options than I care to list, I've ended up with what seems to be a reasonable tradeoff between price and precision. I'm using a Lee Classic Turret with a Lee Sizing die, Lee Powder through die, Lee Crimp die, and Forster Seating die. Powder is metered separately with a Pact digital dispenser and scale.

Right now, I'm using new .308 Winchester brass to avoid having to deal with the whole size/trim/deburr stuff, so the sizing die is only there to check the cases right now. but once I do have to do that, I'll size in batches on a single stage and trim with a Possum Hollow trimmer.

This setup is working fairly well. Once I've dispensed the powder and poured it into the case, I can hit the dispense button again and finish loading that round. By the time I'm back to needing powder, the dispenser is done. So once I get rolling, I can load about 75 - 85 rounds in an hour. Right now, I'm loading up 400 rounds to take to a rifle course.

So far, the only thing I have found is that seating large rifle primers takes a bit more force than I am used to. So I've placed a piece of flat steel in front of the box where the completed bullets go and I stand the case on the steel first. If there's any wobble, the case gets set aside to be checked. I've caught a few high primers that way.

[R-Bros_JLR]

Our standard loading setup for PR is a single stage RCBS press, RCBS hand primer, and RCBS Chargemaster. Generally use either Redding or Forster dies and always size, chamfer/debur new cases. Just some food for thought.

[Graham Smith]

Just some food for thought.

As I said, I did a lot of research and I was shopping on a budget. I don't have the best gear but it works fairly well and the bullets shoot better than I do and will for some time to come.

[Powder Finger]

After picking my way through more options than I care to list, I've ended up with what seems to be a reasonable tradeoff between price and precision. I'm using a Lee Classic Turret with a Lee Sizing die, Lee Powder through die, Lee Crimp die, and Forster Seating die. Powder is metered separately with a Pact digital dispenser and scale.

Right now, I'm using new .308 Winchester brass to avoid having to deal with the whole size/trim/deburr stuff, so the sizing die is only there to check the cases right now. but once I do have to do that, I'll size in batches on a single stage and trim with a Possum Hollow trimmer.

This setup is working fairly well. Once I've dispensed the powder and poured it into the case, I can hit the dispense button again and finish loading that round. By the time I'm back to needing powder, the dispenser is done. So once I get rolling, I can load about 75 - 85 rounds in an hour. Right now, I'm loading up 400 rounds to take to a rifle course.

So far, the only thing I have found is that seating large rifle primers takes a bit more force than I am used to. So I've placed a piece of flat steel in front of the box where the completed bullets go and I stand the case on the steel first. If there's any wobble, the case gets set aside to be checked. I've caught a few high primers that way.

I think you spent the money where it's most important (Seating die). Forester rarely gets mentioned compared to Redding, but I have found them to be just as good or better and a few dollars less. Not sure which sizing die that is, but a lot of PR ammo get loaded with the Lee collet sizer. FWIW the test is on the target not in the wallet.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Powder Finger

[Graham Smith]

Not sure which sizing die that is, but a lot of PR ammo get loaded with the Lee collet sizer.

I have both so I can experiment. Once I start resizing and trimming, I'll probably put a universal decapper in station one, just to be sure the primer hole is clear.

BTW, I probably should have mentioned this, I started this thread because there had been several other threads where people like me were trying to get started loading for bolt action on a budget. I had said that once I had my setup, I'd post what I settled on and some progress reports.

I won't know till I have a lot of rounds down range but I'm even doing that on a bit of a budget by using some Nosler CC 155gr bullets I bought from another Benos member. Jury is still out but sighting in only took 5 rounds at 100 yds with a sandbag and then I was stacking holes in some 1" squares with relative ease. So far, so good.

[Powder Finger]

You might even save on the dedicated decap deal depending on whats laying around.

IE: I use an old .308 die to decap .223 and would think a 30-06 would work for .308.

[dskinsler83]

I think the food for thought comment was meant to be towards the "always size, chamfer, debur new brass"

[dskinsler83]

I just got set up for precision loading 308...I bout a powder trickler, lee collect die, flash hole and primer pocket uniformers, bump gauge, bullet comparators and for now I am enjoying the weigh and hand pour each charge. I mostly enjoy it because my check book can't afford the RCBS Charge master. But I use a standard 3-hole Lee Classic Turret press lee seating and lee crimp dies and so far so good. Eventually I will step up to a better seater die and may swap out to using my 550 to load on or go to all single stage lee presses as I already have the lee bench plate installed on my bench

[Graham Smith]

I think the food for thought comment was meant to be towards the "always size, chamfer, debur new brass"

You are right, I didn't see the word new in there and just assumed...

When I got the brass, I was planning on doing just this, but after checking a lot of the brass with a case gauge and calipers, I couldn't find fault with anything. But just in case, I've got a full length resizer in station one which will catch any brass that is not sized, plus I check every finished round before it goes into the box.

[dskinsler83]

I'm going to assume ur loading for a semi-auto if using the full length sizing die. If not then only full length size new brass the neck size fire formed cases. Wildernessmeans.com has a great article bout loading written by Tres MonCrete which is also a BE member by the way. Great info and worth a read either way.

[dskinsler83]

I'm going to assume ur loading for a semi-auto if using the full length sizing die. If not then only full length size new brass the neck size fire formed cases. Wildernessmeans.com has a great article bout loading written by Tres MonCrete which is also a BE member by the way. Great info and worth a read either way.

[Graham Smith]

I'm going to assume ur loading for a semi-auto if using the full length sizing die. If not then only full length size new brass the neck size fire formed cases. Wildernessmeans.com has a great article bout loading written by Tres MonCrete which is also a BE member by the way. Great info and worth a read either way.

Bolt action. And I think I have read something there - I've read a lot of good stuff. And the reason I wanted to start with new brass rather than brass that had been through who knows what gun is for just this issue.

There is a bit of a debate going on as to what to do about resizing. Some advocate only do a full length resize if it's brass that hasn't been through your gun. If it came from your gun then neck size only (fire formed brass). Another camp basically agrees but advocates doing a full length resize every X number of times you reload the brass. And a third camp says don't bother with neck sizing, it doesn't matter that much, just full length resize every time.

The problem is that a lot of this information is coming from bench rest shooters for whom the question of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" is not a trifling question. Me, not so much... So, I'll do like I do with everything, try and find a happy medium that works for me knowing that it'll be a long time before I can out shoot almost anything I can load using a teaspoon and a hammer. And slowly improve things as need be.

[dskinsler83]

Sounds like u got the plan lol try it this or that and use what works best.

[R-Bros_JLR]

I actually full length size every time and bump the shoulder a couple thousandths for what it's worth. Reliability and ease of chambering is the reason....when in a competition I don't like my ammo to drag when I'm chambering a round. It's just one less thing to through me off and one more aid to speed things up.

[Powder Finger]

I actually full length size every time and bump the shoulder a couple thousandths for what it's worth. Reliability and ease of chambering is the reason....when in a competition I don't like my ammo to drag when I'm chambering a round. It's just one less thing to through me off and one more aid to speed things up.

+1 or 3

[427Cobra]

From one Smith to another look into a Concentricity Gauge, straight ammo flys better, also set up your FL die with a Headspace Gauge bumping the shoulder no more .0015. 308 is a great cartridge to learn long range shooting with, skip the 168s and go with 175SMK or 178Amax, Varget or RL15 in Win brass lit off by Fed 210 or CCi 200 will do nicely.

[Graham Smith]

look into a Concentricity Gauge, <snip, also set up your FL die with a Headspace Gauge bumping the shoulder no more .0015.

I understand each of the words, but I'm still a long ways off from learning what they mean when they are all put together in that sequence. IOW, I'm going to spend some time walking before I try and run.

As for bullets, I've now had a chance to chrono several different loads with several different bullets so I'll see where I want to go from here.

[dskinsler83]

Varget does good so does imr 4064 and 8208xbr but I hve had crappy luck with r15

[cardiackid]

Just wanted to throw a quick follow up in this thread versus starting a new one with pretty much the same topic.

Let me start off by saying I'm a regular weekend hobbyist - I'm not a competitive long gun shooter (maybe someday), nor am I a paid endorser of RCBS, and all of my bolt action stuff is for silhouette steel at 800-900m. I shoot a factory barrel/action Remington 700P with an unruly amount of chamber slop by custom build standards. I spend a lot of time over on SnipersHide.com reading/learning in the precision reloading forum and almost got caught by the bug of "the most expensive dies, etc. are always the best." That may be so, but I have definitely found my "good enough" and I didn't need to look any farther than the RCBS stuff I had sitting in front of me. Fortunately I purchased a concentricity gauge and a set of comparators and headspace/shoulder gauges to check my existing stuff prior to buying new dies and equipment and in the long run, these tools saved me a decent chunk of change and are useful for just about any caliber. I learned a ton about my rifle, my reloads, and some interesting stuff about my equipment with them:

1) The RCBS competition die set for .308 (at least the one I have currently in my rockchucker) produces some very good and repeatable ammunition regarding full length resizing and bullet seating. Once I got the FL sizer set to just bump the shoulder where I wanted it, it has yet to drift. Now...who knows what may happen as the indoor temperature gets warmer, I don't give JoeBoo his rum, and whatever other voodoo the BR and 1000yd junkies do but as of right now over the course of 2 months I have yet to see any variation in my shoulder measurements after resizing.

2) The micrometer bullet seater has been fairly consistent as well. While I do need to a bit of fine tuning here and there, in general the ogive measurements have been within .002" of each other without dialing each round. I do seat just a hair long and fine tune each ogive to a consistent depth, although this has nothing to do with jamming/jumping for my rifle. Rather, I keep the ogives at a consistent depth that will still allow me to magazine feed, thus making my COALs usually between 2.808" to 2.811"

3) Case, neck and bullet runout: All of these so far have been within .003" when measured with the RCBS case master. For resizing and bullet seating, I run the ram up and down once, rotate the case 180 degrees or so and then run it up again. I do realize that this does work the brass a little more rather than one trip up the die, but it has worked so far so I'll continue to do it. I use Winchester brass so far fired anywhere between 0 and 3 times. I haven't annealed any yet, although I just figured out how to do this and will probably be doing it every 3-4 firings or so as I have noticed that resizing and bullet seating has been noticeably stiffer on the 3x fired cases.

4) Case trimming: The RCBS Trim Pro with a .30cal 3-way cutter adapter appears to cut a square, uniform mouth every time. The variance in case length isn't more than .0005 (as I'll get the occasional superscript 5 since my calipers only measure to the thousandth). My only wish is that it had a slightly steeper angle on the chamfer as I usually touch these up with the VLD chamfer tool. Good enough for me and not enough to justify the additional $180 or so for the Wilson/Sinclair model that is designed to guarantee a square cut. I also do not process enough .308 to justify a giraud or gracey trimmer and will most likely only purchase an RT1200 for .223 because that's for a semi auto and I load 4-5 times as much .223 as .308.

I use TresMon's guide to brass prep found in a series of threads over on SnipersHide and do everything but neck turning. At this point, I'm fairly confident my ability as a shooter would not notice the accuracy difference gained by this and my chamber's tolerances are wide enough that it doesn't require it. And quite frankly, I'm usually tired of reloading at this point and just want to shoot.

Bottom line - while I was all gung ho about purchasing X brand this or that based off what a lot of the high power and BR guys recommend, I found that the ammo I produce is within the recommended tolerances for precision shooting and produces repeatable results. Maybe the manufacturer's QA/QC isn't quite as exacting as others, but I have not noticed it with the various pieces of equipment I have. I have read some stories about guys receiving resizing/decapping dies that were off center, etc. but my experience with RCBS's customer service is that they'll make sure you're taken care of. As long as I do my part reloading with the equipment I currently have, I can't blame anything on the ammo it produces. It may or may not produce the exact same assembled cartridge 100% of the time without feeling the need to QA/QC a couple of rounds from each batch here and there, but it produces results that are consistent enough for and well beyond my shooting ability.

The best part about this is that the money I saved by not purchasing new, more expensive dies, trimmers, etc. based off of "what the big guys recommend" without checking what I already have is that I was able to allocate it to the RL550B I purchased from BE this afternoon! I am planning on using that set up for 3-gun .223 and 9mm right now, but I'm interested in getting a .308 conversion kit and using it for my long gun rounds as well. A handful of precision loaders swaer the 550's quality is just as good as the single stages for this work as well although it takes the same amount of effort to check each cartridge so the speed gained is negligible. From what I've seen on Dillons so far I don't doubt them.