Finding difficult oal

[Yooper3402]

I have a 6.5 creed chambered by a good builder, but I am finding to difficult to find the lands accurately. The reamer must have been getting dull when my rifle was chambered because I am getting faint land marks on bullets when chambering factory ammo ( still shoots .5 minute groups). I have hornaday oal tool but bullets always stop short and I am afraid if I push them in too hard I am not going to get accurate readings (afraid of jamming too far). Any advice or ideas?

 

[regency]

Have you tried jamming one in taking a measurement, then lightly pushing one in and taking that measurement to see what kind of difference you get?

 

[mdmp5]

Soft seat a round about 5 times. If you get the same exact measurement 3 times, that’s very likely your depth

 

[Yooper3402]

with a good push I'm getting average of 2.21 cbto with 140 rdf, light pushes are all over the place with little consistency but hovering around 2.15. How concistent of measurements are you expecting finding the lands?

 

[mdmp5]

Ok so when doing the soft seating, it’s not the average you are looking for. You are looking for the mode, or the number that appears the most frequently. It can be tricky, but the best way I’ve been able to do it is to use a case with almost no neck tension, so the bullet seats without getting jammed into the lands. Then on extraction, it should come out without pulling the bullet forward in the case

 

[nexusfire]

Is it a 5R barrel?

 

[Yooper3402]

I will try soft seating them that way and see what results I get. It is a bartlein 5r barrel

 

[nexusfire]

Sometimes the reemer can get chatter with a 5r and the rifling doesn't get cut down all of the way in the throat. If it is unusually short you may want to have your Smith recut it. Happened to me recently.

 

[Sheldon N]

I would say don't overthink it too much. The number in and of itself is not that important, the thing that matters is what seating depth shoots best, and you'll only find that by testing in load development.

For the hornady tool I usually just jam the bullet full stop and measure that number, it's easy and repeatable. I know I want to be short of that number for seating depth to avoid pressure. For finding a "touch the lands" number with the hornady tool, I use a cleaning rod down the barrel and push the bullet back/forth so I can feel it better as it first touches the lands, then measure that number. Seems to be between 5 thou and 15 thou short of the hard jam number most times.

If you want to nerd out and find the exact point where your bullet touches the lands, you can also check out the video on youtube called "How to find your lands exactly" by Wheeler Accuracy.

 

[nexusfire]

The situation that I had was the bullet was hitting the lands about 70 thou shorter than another gun with the same reemer. One barrel was 4 groove and the other was 5r. Gunsmith just had to whisker the throat tool in and clean it up

 

[ShtrRdy]

Did you shoot some rounds through the rifle to knock down the reamer marks? i.e. smooth the throat?

 

[nexusfire]

Barrel hardness>bullet hardness. 5r barrels take two or three passes to completely cut them. Most gunsmiths dislike them.

 

[winniedonkey]

I do the load long and drop the bolt without ejector method. Keep shorting the round a few cunt hairs until it almost drops. Super cunt hairs after until the bolt drops freely. Awesome people on here have posted the good YouTube video on it. I hope this explanation helps.