Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles How Do I Check How Far Off The Lands?

Boltface to ogive is good. Base of a random piece of brass to ogive not so much.

I don't own any 'fancy' tools. Do it with a case and a bullet.

My feelings exactly. Only thing that I do different than the split neck picture is that I split a little further down the shoulder. East to adjust with your fingers, the amount of pressure you are putting on the bullet to keep it from sliding or make it slide easier. miles

For years I used a piece of 1/4" wooden dowel, a sharp pencil and a set of calipers to measure distance to the lands. Close the bolt on the rifle with empty chamber, drop the dowel down and make a mark at the muzzle. Next, drop your bullet (not loaded ammo!) in the chamber and ensure it's seated using a pencil. You have to hold the bullet in place. Next, put the dowel in the barrel against the bullet tip and make a second mark. Measure between the two and that is the max overall length for that bullet.

Obviously there are lots of ways to make errors using this method. Like most things in life, attention to detail will help yield consistent results.

I will say that I bought a sinclair tool several years ago to do these measurements and it works pretty well. Does it the same way and from the breech. But I got by using the dowel for many years and for hunting rifles, it worked fine.

I've had best results with split case method. The Hornady tool gave varied results since the cases are not sized and don't necessarily chamber the same as a case with the bolt closed on it. I had 2 Hornady/Stoney Point cases that were slightly oversized and didn't fully chamber. This gave dangerously long col measurements. Split case is dead simple and quicker IME.

This!

The only difference in my technique is that I use a cleaning rod with a caliber size patch tip on it. Drop the cleaning rod to the closed bolt face and wrap a piece of masking tape around the rod exactly at the muzzle. Then put the bullet against the rifling. I put pressure on the pencil to hold the bullet on the rifling with one hand and push against the nose of the bullet with the cleaning rod with the other. That way I can move the bullet back and forth to position it exactly where it engraves. Then I let the cleaning rod rest in the bore and measure from the muzzle to the masking tape. That is the max COL.

Not saying that this will not work, but there are lots of steps that could open the door for things to go wrong. A slip case only has a couple of things. One is not enough tension so that the bullet is loose and will not stay put. The other is the case is too tight on the bullet and it is forced tightly into the lands and tries to stick there and pulls out slightly when removing the case. This will leave noticeable marks on the bullet base. The tension is easily adjustable to prevent both of these things from happening. miles

That's the method I use.

Same here

1....


2....


3....