seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

[clos9009]

I have a Rem CDL in 30-06 I have the 2160's with a COAL of 3.357 these feed out of the box mag. I am getting 1" moa to just a hair over 1"moa. What I am wanting to know is how much should i seat deeper at a time before i reach the standard COAL to see if i can get this load to group better. and by better I mean all shots touching. I do have a Stoney Point OAL guage for measuring off the ogive. I keep getting 1 flyer out of a 5 shot group.

 

[clos9009]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

anyone?

 

[Fuzzball]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

Ohhh...okay.

There is no 'rule' but once you get into loading for accuracy and adjusting seating depth for best results you will probably find there is a good seating range from maybe 10 to 15 thou wide in which it makes no difference on target. I test in 5 thou steps so I can clearly identify the full range and then seat in the middle of it, that way my loads are tolerant of small differences and I get fewer 'flyers'. (Same rules apply to powder charges.)

You probably have higher accuracy hopes than your factory hunting rifle will be able to deliver but maybe not. Anyway, have fun trying.

 

[clos9009]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

my rounds are loaded to max mag length. so could i just seat say 5 .005 deeper and then seat another 5 .010 deeper and then say third set .015 deeper and and try and stay with in .050 of the lands or the standard COAL for 30.06?

 

[FLIGHT762]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Fuzzball</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

You probably have higher accuracy hopes than your factory hunting rifle will be able to deliver but maybe not. Anyway, have fun trying. </div></div>

This may be what you are dealing with^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^. Try the different seating depths and if that doesn't help, try a different powder or tweak the powder charges you are using. Your rifle may not like 180 grain bullets. sometimes, it takes a bit of experimenting to get a load that shoots the way you want.

 

[clos9009]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

after chatting over emails, my load is pretty close to a accuracy node. I loaded up 100 of these and have shot 40 so far. before I change bullets, and powder, I just wanted to see if I could tweak the seating dept first. and was just unsure as to how much at a time to seat deeper. I guess I have got lucky with my factory 204 and 243 remingtons as they both are 1/2 to 3/4 5 shot all bullets hole touching. just trying to get my 30-06 inline also.

thanks fuzz and flight for your feedback.

 

[clos9009]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: clos</div><div class="ubbcode-body">my rounds are loaded to max mag length. so could i just seat say 5 .005 deeper and then seat another 5 .010 deeper and then say third set .015 deeper and and try and stay with in .050 of the lands or the standard COAL for 30.06? </div></div>

so I stand corrected. took out my rifle and placed a round in the mag, and I was no where near mag length. so then I pulled out the Stoney Point OAL guange and measured the Sierra 2160 to the lands and came up with 3.854. my rounds were loaded to a OAL of 3.774. I pulled 30 and seated the bullets to 3.845

15 @ 57.0grs of H4350 at 3.845 to ogive

15 @ 57.5grs of H4350 at 3.845 to ogive

going to the range tomorrow and see how they group.

 

[FLIGHT762]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

Have you previously shot those Sierra 180 gr. bullets with 57 grs. of
H-4350 in your rifle ? My Sierra manual shows a maximum of 53.6 gr. of H-4350. IMR 4350 a max of 55.3 gr. for the #2150 and #2160 bullets.

My Hornady manual #8 shows a max of 55.3 gr. of H-4350 with their 180 gr. bullets.

Your load looks to be a bit high.

I use 57.0 Grs. of IMR4350 in my 30/06 with a 150 gr. hunting bullet.

 

[clos9009]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

Yes I have shot the 57 and 57.5 in this rifle. The Hodgdon manual list them. it shows them at 2798 and 49,300 CUP.

 

[Fuzzball]

Re: seating depth of Sierra 2150 and 2160 .30 cal

"... try and stay with in .050 of the lands or the standard COAL for 30.06?"

There is no magic in staying within 50 thou of the lands and there is no "standard COAL" for a .30-06 with any specific bullet, nor for any other cartridge/bullet. The length listed in manuals is the OAL the book makers used to develop the listed data, it means no more to YOU and me than the powder charges they list. Everything changes when we change rifles and our's is not theirs.

The 49,300 CUP is a tad low and it may not provide you with a highly consistant burn. That may make for pressure and speed fluctuations and a small loss of accuracy. If you want to keep velocity down for better barrel life you may do better using a lighter charge of a slightly faster powder.

All noobs - and even a lot of old hands - hope to reduce everything to a formula that produces best accuracy/speed, etc, for a given set of parameters. Fact is, nothing about reloading works that way. Experiment.

None of us memorise the factory part number of bullets nor are we likely to look it up. If you think that's relivant it's probalbly better to just tell us what bullet you're using.