Seating problems with 185g Juggs

[TheGerman]

Have been trying to set 185g Berger Juggs in virgin brass sized to have .002 neck tension.

Set the depth I wanted at just under mag length in my Redding Competition seater and measured a few bullets to make sure they are the same ogive length. Start seating and right away I get huge variances. Sometimes I can get them to be closer after seating the bullet 4,5,6+ times in a row but WTF is going on?

Took the die apart and nothing looks out of place or gunked up. Also checked to see that if the seating stem had enough depth to where the tip of the bullet wasn't bottoming out and its longer than the length of the bullet before the ogive. Ogive length on a loaded round I wanted was 2.164 and I started getting around 2.166 all the way to 2.174 even though the bullets are all the same ogive length when measured separately.

Does it have something to do with the 185g Jugg's shape/profile? Can't figure out what this can be.

ETA - Just put 5 Sierra 175g SMK through the die on the brass and all 5 were within .0005 of each other.

 

[nso123]

Not sure how much difference it makes, but when I seat my Juggs I partially seat the bullet, rotate the case 180 degrees, then seat it the rest of the way. I assume you have measured some of the bullets to make sure they are the same length? Do they seem hard to seat?

 

[TheGerman]

I usually seat, then rotate and seat again and everything is fine, usually. With the Juggs, I have to do it 5,6+ times to even get close.

It also always feels like its engaging something like its seating it some more each time instead of there being no resistance if its seated all the way.

After looking on Redding's site, they seem to now offer a 'VLD stem' for seaters. Emailed them to see if this may be the case.

 

[nso123]

One other thing I do is lube the case necks with dry lube prior to seating the bullets. That may help as well.

 

[ShtrRdy]

Something I noticed was that my ogive measurement tool contacts the bullet very close to the ogive to bearing surface junction whereas the seating stem out of the die contacts the bullet higher up.

Maybe measure some bullets using the seating stem to see how consistent that number is.

 

[cornhusker86]

Just a scientific wild-assed guess here, but it sounds like you may have a compression issue.