O.A.L. Gauge

[7x57]

Under $10 on eBay or amazon but around $30 to buy locally

[MM]

I ordered everything today. Great information and help, thank you everyone.

[deerhunter338mag]

I ordered everything today. Great information and help, thank you everyone.

just a bit of a tip. When using the gauge just do it very slowly and softly and then work the average you are getting. A thou here and there is not going to brake the bank, so don’t stress getting a different reading. It’s spitting hairs.

[Discogodfather]

Stoney point (Hornady) is good but there is a catch- the brass you use should be the modified case you use to measure. If you use the hornady modified tools, you get inconsistencies in measurements. You can send Hornady the brass and they will cut it for you or you can do it yourself with a lathe. I have a really small cheap Chinese lathe and it works great.

Why the lathe? I’ve not seen any problems with simple drill and tap, am I missing something?

Sorry, I seem to be just reiterating the same point 7x57 is making. The lathe just makes it a bit easier. If you go to a 4 jaw you can dial it in beyond the run out of the case. This makes sure you will not gain or lose anything in terms of readings. If you use a modified case (which is what Hornady sells and is always Hornady brass) and you shoot Lapua you can easily miss the entire range of jump and be either in the lands or way off and not know it. Then you put in your log book that groups performance based on what you thought was .0XX" jump, but you were no where near that in reality. Garbage in, garbage out. You can similarly think a case was drilled and tapped right, then be way off and the whole endeavor is futile. Not saying you can't get great accuracy just drilling and hand tapping, but it's harder.

My theory is to take good time with the case- you are essentially making a gauge. Find a really nice one that is within a good tolerance, like somewhere in the middle of a 20 case random comparison. This ensures you aren't at the edges of tolerances of the brass to begin with. With the 4 jaw you can just get that much more accurate. After the hard work is done, you got a gauge potentially for life. Only thing I do is recheck that it's still very close to the latest box of Lapua (or whatever) that I pick up and nothing has really changed.

[Discogodfather]

Before I forget there is one last Stoney Point tool secret. It's in the directions for the thing, but it seems like no one does it much. When you take readings with it, it's not a one shot deal, meaning you can't just take one reading and be sure. According to their procedure and in general I have found it to be true- take 10 to 20 readings in a row. Bracket the results and find the best average and use that as the datum. I've gotten lazy in the past and poked it just a few times (it gets super annoying because the bullet sticks into the lands and you are either shaking the rifle or dropping it on the butt to get the case to fall out). The trick is to have a rod down the barrel and ready to pop the bullet out so you can quickly take a bunch of readings and compare them. I tend to push the bullet into the lands with a small amount of force so that I really am honest as to where the ogive engages. That makes the bullet stick every time.

[7x57]

Before I forget there is one last Stoney Point tool secret. It's in the directions for the thing, but it seems like no one does it much. When you take readings with it, it's not a one shot deal, meaning you can't just take one reading and be sure. According to their procedure and in general I have found it to be true- take 10 to 20 readings in a row. Bracket the results and find the best average and use that as the datum. I've gotten lazy in the past and poked it just a few times (it gets super annoying because the bullet sticks into the lands and you are either shaking the rifle or dropping it on the butt to get the case to fall out). The trick is to have a rod down the barrel and ready to pop the bullet out so you can quickly take a bunch of readings and compare them. I tend to push the bullet into the lands with a small amount of force so that I really am honest as to where the ogive engages. That makes the bullet stick every time.

Good points and worth doing.

[SPEEDY]

See where I gind this falls apart is when you then have back the projectiles in a little more to fit a magazine.

Its great for single shots and an R93/R8 where you can just use a longer magazine.
But unless you shooting natches that need tiny amounts of group size to win is it really worth it?
For the average varmint hunter or even more so big game hunter, even for LR its just not needed IMO.
I mean its great for fun or if you enjoy setting up competition dies but the average shooter I don't see its value.
It'sa lot of work for little gain.
I only bring this up as the initial post is about doing this for single shots and BBF, the BBF in particular I see it as way over kill, but fun if you like to play around with that sort of stuff.
For hunting a paint pen works just as well, especially if your not using super slimline VLD bullets.

Sorry if its a bit if a thread jack, but I'm genuinely interested on if its really useful in a hunting rifle, I can honestly say that I never did it for any rifle I've owned and many of them would cloverleaf.
I've done it with rifles at work to measure how much life was left in a barrel before the throat was too excessive.

Thats abother matter to, you would have to do it all over every time groups opened just a bit to chase the lands and would need to buy a set of match dies for every barrel ir rifle you own.

It just seems like a lot of work and money for a tiny degree of gain to me.
If a few thou ment the difference between winning and loosing then its worth it, for a hunter or even weekend shooter that likes some fun or more friendly competition then its wasted effort.
If you shoot from a standing/sitting etc position then its so insignificant as to be pointless.
Even a half inch improvement won't help as much as the same time spent in a gym or practicing dry firing at home.

[deerhunter338mag]

Before I forget there is one last Stoney Point tool secret. It's in the directions for the thing, but it seems like no one does it much. When you take readings with it, it's not a one shot deal, meaning you can't just take one reading and be sure. According to their procedure and in general I have found it to be true- take 10 to 20 readings in a row. Bracket the results and find the best average and use that as the datum. I've gotten lazy in the past and poked it just a few times (it gets super annoying because the bullet sticks into the lands and you are either shaking the rifle or dropping it on the butt to get the case to fall out). The trick is to have a rod down the barrel and ready to pop the bullet out so you can quickly take a bunch of readings and compare them. I tend to push the bullet into the lands with a small amount of force so that I really am honest as to where the ogive engages. That makes the bullet stick every time.

Good points and worth doing.

Or just send Aaron a hand full of fired brass and he will tap it for you.

[Discogodfather]

It just seems like a lot of work and money for a tiny degree of gain to me.
If a few thou ment the difference between winning and loosing then its worth it, for a hunter or even weekend shooter that likes some fun or more friendly competition then its wasted effort.
If you shoot from a standing/sitting etc position then its so insignificant as to be pointless.
Even a half inch improvement won't help as much as the same time spent in a gym or practicing dry firing at home.

Yeah, I agree, I do this entirely from a target shooting perspective. I have to imagine that in hunting it doesn't get you much at all. The only thing I can think of is that you guys run a really hot load and don't want lots of fouling of the throat, so you need to get to the lands roughly or around .010-.060" from them. If that's the case, then where as if I make a mistake and jam the bullet into the lands and then go to the range and have to yank one out for some reason, all it costs me if it sticks the bullet and disassembles in the chamber is a bit of a mess. For a hunter, again I imagine, that would be a catastrophe and a possible missed kill. So other than preventing any jamming and disassembled bullets in the chamber the whole process is pretty moot. You do get some horrible throat erosion with hot loads and ultra magnums and jumps that are too long.

It does make a huge difference for group sizes though, it might be the single most valuable trick in hand loading other than getting the right bullet for the right twist.

[SPEEDY]

The main reason for a hunting load not to touch the lands is pressure, if your touching the lands then your pressure goes north.
But when you think how many people are winning or scoring in the top percent in say PRS matches with factory ammunition it makes this oal thing kind of moot.

But I know it makes a difference with as stated earlier vld designs and even in the hunting sence with rounds like SST.
If I loaded a Hornady SST for top accuracy I could group a hair under 1/2" if I give the thin barrel enough time to cool before shots but I couldn't fit them in the magazine, seated in to fit the magazine then it shot just over an inch, more like 1 1/4".
But with the Nosler 120gn BT seating them out or in deeper only made at best a 1/4" difference from the same rifle.
And sometimes seated in was almost as accurate as almost touching the lands.
Thats seems counter intuitive next to the few thou off rule.

Here is a very rough way old way, I preferred the old paint pen way myself but it does illiterate the point about how big a difference there can be between fitting the magazine and being a hair off the lands.


[BBvideo=560,315]https://youtu.be/4MHONbuk--0[/BBvideo]

A prime example is this, one is seated to the lands of my standard barrel, the 2nd is sized to fit the magazine and just function.

20180617_201608-1.jpg

[deerhunter338mag]

Interesting, however with my 338lapimp I needed to know my OAL to work out what I needed to push the 300gr EH 10thou into the lands so it will shoot. This process was not easy and took a bit of time to get it right. But once worked out was sweet as sweet can be. When fire forming the cases I was using the 300gr SNRN woodleigh projectiles and had them jammed in that if you open the bolt the projectile would be stuck. But they did group extremely well.

The one great thing about Blaser is their mag channel has a fair bit of room in it so you can really have a good play around with the seating. I’m a strong believer if you can get your load shooting nice tight groups at 100m regardless if it’s for punching paper or for hunting then there’s no excuse when you miss as you have developed a very accurate load.

[Ado]

What specification of tap die do you need? Presume it is an imperial size and not metric?

5/16-36 tpi. That's if using the Hornady OAL gauge. Have a look on eBay or Amazon - plenty available and quite cheap. Generally come out of China and quality is ok.

Thanks - bit hard to find in UK but ordered one from eBay

[7x57]

It just seems like a lot of work and money for a tiny degree of gain to me.
If a few thou ment the difference between winning and loosing then its worth it, for a hunter or even weekend shooter that likes some fun or more friendly competition then its wasted effort.
If you shoot from a standing/sitting etc position then its so insignificant as to be pointless.
Even a half inch improvement won't help as much as the same time spent in a gym or practicing dry firing at home.

Yeah, I agree, I do this entirely from a target shooting perspective. I have to imagine that in hunting it doesn't get you much at all. The only thing I can think of is that you guys run a really hot load and don't want lots of fouling of the throat, so you need to get to the lands roughly or around .010-.060" from them. If that's the case, then where as if I make a mistake and jam the bullet into the lands and then go to the range and have to yank one out for some reason, all it costs me if it sticks the bullet and disassembles in the chamber is a bit of a mess. For a hunter, again I imagine, that would be a catastrophe and a possible missed kill. So other than preventing any jamming and disassembled bullets in the chamber the whole process is pretty moot. You do get some horrible throat erosion with hot loads and ultra magnums and jumps that are too long.

It does make a huge difference for group sizes though, it might be the single most valuable trick in hand loading other than getting the right bullet for the right twist.

I too primarily use this method for target shooting and the use VLDs or Copperheads for this activity. It certainly does make a significant difference when chasing group sizes and provides a very quick starting point to achieving accurate loads.
Probably doesn't achieve that much when hunting although when using Bergers I have found this method to again provides a great place to start esp is using VLD style projectiles.
Apart from the Blaser I use DBM in my other rifles which allows for greater mag length as a rule. Target I usually single feed.
I don't see it as a lot of wasted effort and money and I guess it helps when I have most of the equipment needed to use this method. In fact for me it's a quick way to achieve accuracy.

[7x57]

Actually the Hornady OAL gauge and threaded case came into its own last week. Mate had a 6x45 newly acquired and locally smithed that was shooting erratically. Had been rebarrelled on a very smooth early model Remington action.
Quickly threaded a fireformed case to determine where the lands. Proceeded to push projectile carefully forward and it fell out of the case!! A check of the twist rate confirmed a very conservative twist negating the use of longer and heavier projectiles.
Seated the projectiles he was using to give enough grip and you didn't measure the distance to lands in thou but rather in time Projectiles needed to take a cut lunch before meeting the lands. Quick check with local smith that I use confirmed an absolute lemon and shocker of a build.
OAL gauges saved a lot of wasted time and ammo,in this case but unfortunately for my mate it was a hard lesson learned - don't by a rifle " because it looked so nice"