Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Straightening non-concentric rounds

Possibly a stupid question given that I've been measuring runout - where do you guys measure runout on the bullet? I always thought it was measured on the ogive. I noticed in the Sinclair video they run the indicator close to the ogive in one shot and closer to the bullet tip on another. Which got me to looking on the interweb. Some guys measure it on the ogive, at least one source in a Wolffe pub says run it on the "parallel sides of the bullet" (VanDenburg), while others are forward of the ogive.

What say you guys?

On the ogive very near the body. That's where it's going to go into the lands.

I use whatever the instructions say that came with the tool. With the Hornady gauage it said to measure on the ogive, so I did. With the RCBS it said to measure about 0.1" in front of the case mouth, so I did.

What do the instructions for the Sinclair tool say to do?

bwinters,

I have a home made runout measurer. Since I got it from a friend I measure where I saw him measure; right behind the plastic tip.

What are the advantages of the other two places?

When do we get into making gold out of base metal?

The instructions and/or the video don't say. I called them and they said measure the loaded round on the neck which doesn't seem quite right. The wolffe article may have a good point with respect to measure on the "parallel side of the bullet". The thought is that any movement of the case longitudinally will cause the dial to slide along the long axis of the bullet giving inaccurate run-out measurements. I think that is more of a theoretic argument. If your case head is that warped, you have bigger issues than a couple thousands of run-out.

I'll keep doing it at the ogive. Measuring it out towards the tip would magnify any run-out due to the further distance along the axis of the bullet away from the crooked neck. It seems intuitive that the most important point is where the bullet contacts the lands/grooves, not the bullet point.