Lands

What are some good methods to find the land depth in a rifle ? Looking to load up some 95 VLDs in my .243.

I use an actual loaded round to find the lands. No tools needed, and I have WAY too many calibers I load for to have chamber gauges for each one. I load the bullet long on the first round, and chamber check it (very carefully!). If the bolt won't close, then I'll seat the bullet slightly deeper and re-check. Once the bolt closes, I extract the round and see if it is making contact by looking for scratch marks on the ogive of the bullet. If no marks, then I load it longer. If there is heavy scratch marks and I feel resistance when closing the bolt, I'll seat it deeper and re-check with a new and clean round. Once a round has scratches on it, I'll load up a second round seated where I want, and chamber check again. When I feel no resistance in closing the bolt, and an extracted round has slight scratch marks all the way around the bullet, that's where the lands are. I'll make note of this measurement along with magazine measurements for max COAL.

Depending on the bullet used, I may not even worry about finding the lands. If the mag box is too short and I have to seat the bullet short, the lands measurement won't matter. But if I'm shooting a VLD style bullet, knowing the lands measurement and mag box lengths are fairly important.

Do round nose bullets hit the lands different that pointed?

I loaded 180 SSTs and some round nose bullets. Both bullets are the same length but the bolt closes hard with the RN.

COL is 2.79- 2.80 on both rounds.
COL on 150 factory are around 2.65 if I recall.

Anyway the 2.29-2.80 bullets fit in my internal mag fine. I just noticed the RN are harder to close.

If I go much shorter on the COL Im verging on a compacted load.

Savage 11 in 308.

Yes, the RN will certainly make contact with the lands if it's loaded to the same COAL as a tipped or BTHP bullet. Look at the picture and links below. In the picture, you can see the RN bullet have a very short tip to ogive measurement. The ogive is where the near full caliber part of the bullet is, and makes contact with the rifling. If you were to seat a BTHP, or even more so a polymer tipped bullet (since the tip adds more length to the bullet), the COAL will need to be adjusted much shorter when loading to a RN bullet.

http://www.bergerbullets.com/effects-of-...ve-cbto-part-2/

I use the Hornady tool to find it, but having a gauge/modified case for every caliber is a pain like Chad said.
I still haven't seen much difference in my guns seating the bullet to book max COAL and seating bullet 20-30 thous. off lands, but I know there's got to be some benefit.

Awesome guys. Thanks for the tips.

Easy to make you own mod case to fit the hornady tool. Fire formed case from a factory round, drill +Tap & die set. Made a few of them and they work great.

All you need is a split-neck case, a caliper, and a comparator set.

My rifle likes a big jump, it dosen't do as well when I seat the bullets long. I've never owned a rifle that didn't shoot more accurarely with the bullets seated long. Seems weird to me.

I use same method to determine seating length as Chad except I darken the bullet with candle soot.

Some bullets like to be kissing the lands (think VLD) the others some jump isn't a bad thing. I go for function through the magazine and feeding into the chamber more so than being that concerned about length, can usually get sub MOA out of most of my rifles by varying the powder charge, and not being a ways off the lands. In the Weatherby magnums I have loaded for some have .25 or so free bore and still shoot good enough for minute of deer further than I will shoot at deer.

Stony Point, Hornady and another that is escaping me now make them gauges for measuring them but it is not hard to make your own. RiverRider has a post from the past somewhere on here that has pictures and instructions. The method Chad described works and has been in use a long time. It was described in the first reloading manual I ever bought and that was years ago.

Only on a few very accurate rifles do I really worry about it and have cases modified for finding the length.

I did what chad says. Luckily I got a competition seater so I can go incrementally and see. It worked for me and I'm new to reloading. I've heard of the hornady and buddy uses it. I've also heard a case, a bullet and a dowel rod works. But never tried it.

Question to Chad,
When u do the exercise, u said u seat lower until u see slight markings. I though u do it until u literally see no markings? Is that too far?

I'm gonna try this out

I think I'll try this. Really good idea.

I have the Hornady comparator set