Anyone seating with an arbor press?

[Dogtown]

Increasingly, I'm finding that I'm starting to use more and more gear and techniques common with benchrest shooters for making my ELR ammo. From precision primer uniforming and seating tools to neck turning and controlling charge weights by the kernel. One of the new areas I'm looking at is an arbor press with force gage to control the seating process more precisely.

Am I just becoming obsessive or does anyone else to do this with their big magnums?

 

[oldfatguy]

Increasingly, I'm finding that I'm starting to use more and more gear and techniques common with benchrest shooters for making my ELR ammo. From precision primer uniforming and seating tools to neck turning and controlling charge weights by the kernel. One of the new areas I'm looking at is an arbor press with force gage to control the seating process more precisely.

I'm I just becoming obsessive or does anyone else to do this with their big magnums?

Looking for some education here. How does a force gauge make bullet seating more precise? It would seem that when you get to bullet seating the neck conditions that determine neck tension have already been established.

OFG

 

[Dogtown]

That's a good question and while I've focused my efforts on getting consistent neck tension, I still see benchrest shooters that use the Arbor press with wilson dies to have some kind of tangible metric for the amount of force applied to seated bullets. So I'm rather curious?

 

[Rhys]

Measuring the amount of force used to seat the bullet is just another way to confirm consistent neck tension. When you seat one and it goes high or low on the force gage you can eliminate that round from those that would be used in your shots for record. It's not making any individual round more consistent, but it is helping sort off a potential point of variation across an entire batch of ammo.

 

[damoncali]

I used to use an arbor press for my .30BR, but it's really only useful for loading at the range. I have since abandoned neck sizing so I only use regular presses now. Arbors are fine, but I don't think there is any advantage over threaded presses other than portability.

 

[Fuzzball]

"....and controlling charge weights by the kernel. "

Such fine duplication of charges might matter... IF you could also duplicate the internal case volume to the same degree of precision. Real world being what it is would require you to reuse the same case for each shot but that's really not practical. Nor are primers all that consistant either. But if duplicating charges to .00000001 gr. floats your boat emotionally, go for it!

 

[Fuzzball]

"How does a force gauge make bullet seating more precise? It would seem that when you get to bullet seating the neck conditions that determine neck tension have already been established."

What's called "neck tension" really isn't; it's what machanists call an interference fit, that being an undersized hole. We can make our case necks a precise thckness and inside diameters exactly the same and variations in the hardness of the neck metal will vary suficently for us to feel differences in seating effort. Brass can't be stressed much without exceeding its elastic limits. For necks it means being less than about a thou under bullet size is meaningless so far as grip goes, smaller just makes seating more difficult.

 

[wilecoyote]

occasionally I use the Wilson seater-arbor pr. combo but, on target, my .308's score, from sandbags, I can't see any stellar improvement from what I have from Forster-Bonanza Micro BR Seater on Ammomaster_
(maybe am I...)

 

[BuzzBoss915]

As far as I am concerned, my neck tension is determined by the specific bushing I use, in conjunction with turning my necks to fit chamber specs. The advantage of the arbor press lies in the Wilson straight line chamber seating die, which virtually eliminates runout. BB

 

[Killshot44]

The advantage of the arbor press lies in the Wilson straight line chamber seating die, which virtually eliminates runout. BB

In actuality, the arbor presses became favorable when neck-sizing only (primarily at the range, for short-range benchrest competition) was the flavor of the month which went on for a period of years. The seating die was somewhat secondary.
With the introduction of commercially-made full-length-sizing bushing dies, necksizing only fell out of favor.

Noted shooter, 'smith and writer German Salazar conducted a TIR test on seating dies........the Wilson wasn't #1.
The Rifleman's Journal: Reloading: Seating Die Runout

 

[BuzzBoss915]

Well, partner, rewriting history only goes so far; I can see that I have a lot to learn. I have a lot of respect for Salazar but my stuff is working fine, no issues that require reassessment. BB

 

[paul2atlo8]

I use a Wilson seating die and arbor press to seat my 240smk's on my 300ulta mag, I clean my necks up very lightly and don't see much difference between the Wilson die
and my forester seating die run out tends to be less than .002. However I do sort the cases by weight and the bullets by ogive length, out at 780yds the difference is about 3
inches between the prepped brass and the brass that's not sorted and the bullets not measured. I don't think for me all the work is worth it, if I was chasing X's that would be
a different story. My humble opinion.