30br shoulder bump

P

P1ZombieKiller

http://www.P1ZK.com
I was bumping my shoulders .001 in my 30br. I recently checked my die, and it appears that they are bumping .003 now. It is shooting as good now if not better. Should I change it back to .001 or leave it alone. I do not know how many firings back it moved.

My basic question is, am I over working the brass by moving it .003.

I posted this here and not the reloading section due to it's a competition bench gun, and I wanted opinions of those that shoot this game.
 
If your rig is shooting BETTER, I wouldn't mess with it - not unless the brass is needing to be trimmed 'too often' . . . I confess, I don't know what 'too often' is.:D But, I'd guess more than every ten firings or so . . . I probably get 100+ firings before needing to trim. RG
 
brass life

RGR,

What do you do to your brass to get to last that long? Do you re-anneal after XX firings? Do you clean them? Return necks? I am new to the 30BR game and to quality brass like Lapua. I thought 15 firings was an incredible life spans with cartridges like the 22-250.

Thanks, tim
 
Could be your brass wasn’t completely blown out when you made your initial die setting.
 
J Conley said:
Could be your brass wasn’t completely blown out when you made your initial die setting.
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John makes a good point.

Tim, i use a Redding Type 'S' FL/Nk bushing die (an old 7BR Rem. with the neck-port opened up to .340') and bump the shoulders about 0.001-0.0015", and use a .324" carbide Nk bushing. For my first - Ronnie Long chambered - 30BR barrel, I made 30 cases (Lapua 6BR NORMA), and shot a little over 6400 rounds - that's 213 firings per case: trimmed maybe twice (to 1.500" for the 1.510" maxim OAL); never annealed. Never lost a case, split a neck, etc. Of late, I make 60 cases per barrel, which allows me to pre-load for the first yardage, and makes for a leisurely pace, re-loading for the afternoon Agg.

During its last tournament that original (Morrison) barrel shot a 500-27x - good for a second place finish in the GRAND AGG . . . and held up it's 1/2 of the current IBS TWO GUN (6x + VfS) Agg. Record - I think a 999-54x total. :eek: Would annealing have made things better - I think not, but pals tell me otherwise. :D RG
 
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Ahhhh!!!!!!

J Conley said:
Could be your brass wasn’t completely blown out when you made your initial die setting.
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I think you might have it right. I'll do some more measuring. Is bumping it .003 working it too hard? I want to try to get 214 firings out of my brass. ;)
 
P1ZombieKiller said:
Is bumping it .003 working it too hard? I want to try to get 214 firings out of my brass. ;)
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I doubt anyone has done a definitive study ;-). Try for less & see if the bolt closes easily -- and if you get just as good accuracy. There is still no trophy for cases with the most firings on them.
 
Charles E said:
I doubt anyone has done a definitive study ;-). Try for less & see if the bolt closes easily -- and if you get just as good accuracy. There is still no trophy for cases with the most firings on them.
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And it took me a LONG time to figure THAT out - never did get any fake wood for case life - or, even the most velocity, or, the best score with 'moly' coated bullets!:eek:;)

But, with those initial barrels, we did a good deal of searching for the limits - sort of a bas-ackwards race to see who could win/place/show the longest . . . and THAT proved to be much longer than we had imagined. In retrospect, for that first barrel, just short of 5,000 rounds, the X-count began to taper off: 20+ X being a 'good' day at 100 Yd., where prior to that, less than 20X was a complete wreck.

So, the question remains: was the barrel worn-out, or, was it the BRASS which needed replacing?:eek::confused: Via bore-scope inspection, the barrel didn't appear to be 'shot-out' - and on a good day, one could still scare the 500-30x mark . . . so, it certainly wasn't 'totaled'.

Last season, for Hunter Class events, I went for HIGH BC . . . damn - they never gave me a trophy for THAT either! :eek::D RG
 
R.G.,

you can NOT be having such GREAT results without much MORE effort!!

You must cut, re crown, weigh, meplat, re weigh, measure, and re weigh.
 
R. G. Robinett said:
never did get any fake wood for case life - or, even the most velocity, or, the best score with 'moly' coated bullets!:eek:;)
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It would be too far for Randy to travel, but the North Carolina 1000 yard Benchrest Club gives out REAL wood. Costs about $2.00 more for walnut over glued wood particles . . .

* * *

Seriously, to the original poster -- if you have a "thingy" made by running YOUR chamber reamer into an old barrel stub, try setting your headspace (head clearance) to .001 or a touch more. I doubt you're going to have premature case death with .003, but who knows. As long as the accuracy is as good with less clearance, and I don't see why it wouldn't be -- you've not hurt anything, and maybe helped.

As long as the effort expended isn't too much, "doesn't hurt, may help" is always a good rule of thumb. When the effort or cost starts climbing, then you might want to investigate further.
 
Bump

One thing many of us PPC shooters have to do when shooting our 30BR's is to get into another frame of mind.

First, you don't have to push it hard. Heck, even though I full length size, I am not sure you even have to. I hit the shoulder about .001, and even on cases that have been fire countless times, the bolt just opens with no effort, and the bullets go in the middle of the target.

The only thing that bumping the shoulder a tad too much will do, (if the Rifle still shoots great), is work the brass a little more. How much that will affect brass life, I do not have a clue, just theory, w2hich says that you will have to trim them sooner. That is, when you finally do have to trim them.........jackie
 
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