Burr
11-21-2020, 02:42 AM
I've got the Sinclair and Hornady gauges. I've found what I use them for was really unexpected, I kind of fell down the rabbit hole. I would be interested in the 21st Century tool as a reasonable substitute for the Sinclair gauge, but I have not used one. First, I found the numbers themselves, on these 2 tools, and on the same loaded round won't give you the same runout. They will show variance in the same area, but I spent a great deal of time moving the indicator and never got them to read the same. I don't use the Hornady tool much anymore, gravitated to the Sinclair. These tools don't make straight ammo, they just measure the results. The good that I found was my results were very consistent. If I loaded 50 rounds, and I found 3-4 thou variance, I would find the same variance on about 48 out of the 50. So that must mean my procedures are consistent and that's good, but the tools I was using were only capable of that level of accuracy / variance. So I found myself buying additional die sets, and additional seating dies, and comparing them against each other. By working with a couple of friends, I even had the opportunity to test 3 die sets of the same manufacturer for the same cartridge. I found they were all consistent, but different. Hmmm, so even within the same die maker, some dies produced straighter ammo than others. You see, this is a dangerous rabbit hole. Finding this out is why I will never buy a used die set again. Because I found I owned a couple of die sets that were bad enough, I really shouldn't be using them if I wanted straight ammo. And then some others, by the same die maker, were really really good.
So then I started testing different ways to resize a case, and seat them. I was looking for what to do to produce straight ammo for all future cartridges that I would reload - you know, what's the one way to do this that I get the straightest ammo possible from the start? That changed what I buy for tools. I now have 2 approaches that I take when buying my dies.
First, if I'm looking for the quickest, fastest and least meticulous, a Lee collet die and a Sinclair seater hand die.
Second, if I'm being more particular - I run with a Redding body die, followed by a Sinclair neck die with bushing (after trimming the necks) and a Sinclair seating die.
The seating die I found to be the most critical, you HAVE to fully support the case during seating, and it's just my feeling the Sinclair seating die is the least expensive of the various high quality seating dies, and does as good or better job than all that I tested.
The run-out tools are just measuring tools, they don't make straight ammo. They only measure the results of the tools you use to make ammo. So if you want a measuring tool, to make straight ammo, you are probably headed down the path to having multiple die sets of various brands and quality levels to learn how to determine which tools make straight ammo.
There WAS a day when I only had 1 die set for each cartridge I reload.... That day has sailed... Anyway, that's the rabbit hole I fell into when I got tools to measure run-out.
Oh, and before it's mentioned, I could not measure the difference in accuracy at the range. At least not with light barrels and distances out to 300 yards. Maybe a better shooter could?
So then I started testing different ways to resize a case, and seat them. I was looking for what to do to produce straight ammo for all future cartridges that I would reload - you know, what's the one way to do this that I get the straightest ammo possible from the start? That changed what I buy for tools. I now have 2 approaches that I take when buying my dies.
First, if I'm looking for the quickest, fastest and least meticulous, a Lee collet die and a Sinclair seater hand die.
Second, if I'm being more particular - I run with a Redding body die, followed by a Sinclair neck die with bushing (after trimming the necks) and a Sinclair seating die.
The seating die I found to be the most critical, you HAVE to fully support the case during seating, and it's just my feeling the Sinclair seating die is the least expensive of the various high quality seating dies, and does as good or better job than all that I tested.
The run-out tools are just measuring tools, they don't make straight ammo. They only measure the results of the tools you use to make ammo. So if you want a measuring tool, to make straight ammo, you are probably headed down the path to having multiple die sets of various brands and quality levels to learn how to determine which tools make straight ammo.
There WAS a day when I only had 1 die set for each cartridge I reload.... That day has sailed... Anyway, that's the rabbit hole I fell into when I got tools to measure run-out.
Oh, and before it's mentioned, I could not measure the difference in accuracy at the range. At least not with light barrels and distances out to 300 yards. Maybe a better shooter could?