Dick,
You, sir, are an artist. A very good artist. That is beautiful work and I thank you for sharing this with us.
I can't wait to see your load development results.
Ed
I have most all the reloading equipment required to load and shoot. I'll use IMR 4895 and Federal 205 or 205M's to start. After the cases are fired a couple of times I should be able to get around 25+ grains into them. (You can't get enough 4895 in a .222 case to get excessive pressure.) I'll seat the bullets into a hard jam to start. They will be moly coated.
Experience has taught me that the more 4895 I can use, the better a duece shoots. When I can settle on the amount of powder, I will experiment with seating depth. I will probably end up within .005" of the full jam. I will be shooting real benchrest bullets, probably Bart's, maybe Bergers. I ordered a barrel with a 14" twist especially for the 52 gr. BR bullets.
I will use only what I call a "Chamber die" for FL sizing... no expander button. I have 100 Lapua Match Cases to start. This gun has a SAAMI chamber so the only neck turning I will do will be to eliminate any run out in the case neck thickness. With the Lapua cases, very little is necessary, usually less than .0005".
After I get a few cases that have been fired three times, I am going to call Neil Jones and see if he will sell me one of his FL dies only... (No seater... I already have a good seater.) They are the best available if you want absolutely straight cases coming out of the die. I'm talking neck-to-body run out of .0002" or less.
FWIW, back when I was shooting a lot of competition and writing about it in Precision Shooting, a major bullet manufacturer offerred to sponsor me for a season... all their BR bullets I needed for a season, if I would use them and write about them. I tried them extensively and they would shoot no better than 3/8". I could do better than .150" average groups with Bart's. I respectfully declined.
