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This is part of a series of posts that highlight the gear the 200 top-ranked shooters in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) are running in long-range rifle matches. (Learn about the Precision Rifle Series.) This group of competitors represents the best precision rifle shooters in the country.
This article is part of a mini-series where I’m sharing the reloading equipment and processes these guys use to load their match ammo. This group of shooters is especially interesting when it comes to reloading because of the level of precision required to compete. 66% of these top-ranked shooters reported that the muzzle velocity of their ammo had a standard deviation (SD) of 5 fps or less, which means they are only getting around 5 inches of vertical dispersion at 1000 yards! (What is SD?) 60% of this group said their average 5-shot group was 0.3 MOA or less! So these guys are handloading truly world-class ammo!
Here are links to the other articles in this series, which focused on the equipment and tools these guys use:
- Reloading Presses & Dies
- Reloading Powder Scales
- Reloading Process & Steps Performed (this article)
This article will break down the reloading process and steps that these pro shooters take when loading their match ammo.
The Operations
I surveyed the top 200 ranked shooters in the PRS and asked which of the operations below they did EVERY TIME they did brass prep. Then I asked them which operations they did NOT DO EVERY TIME but did AT LEAST ONCE to a batch of their match brass.
- Clean/Tumble
- Anneal
- Trim
- Chamfer & Debur
- Full-Length Size
- Neck-Size Only (don’t touch shoulder or body)
- Run Neck Mandrel to set inside diameter of neck
- Turn Necks
- Clean Primer Pockets
- Uniform Primer Pockets
- Sort/Cull Brass by Weight
- Sort/Cull Brass by Volume
What reloading steps do you do EVERY TIME you do brass prep?
First, let’s look at the reloading steps that these top shooters say they do every time they are processing brass and doing brass prep:
You can see that around 70% or more of these shooters do these steps every time:
- Clean/tumble their brass
- Anneal
- Full-Length Size
- Chamfer & Debur
Full-Length Sizing
It might surprise people to see precision handloaders saying they full-length size their brass every time. In the Benchrest and F-Class world, it might be more common for shooters to only neck-size their brass. Neck-sizing means the die doesn’t touch the shoulder or body of the case at all.
Last year, I interviewed PRS Champion and two-time IPRF World Champion Austin Buschman, and he mentioned that he full-length resizes and bumps his case shoulder back 0.003” every time. “I shoot a lot of dusty, dirty matches in Oklahoma, and if you get a little bit of dust in your chamber and your brass isn’t sized quite a bit, you just can’t always close the chamber on it,” Buschman explained. When it comes to reloading ammo, his highest priority is reliability. Nothing will cause you to drop points faster than not being able to chamber a round. That is why 94% of these guys full-length size their brass every time.
Trimming Cases
Additionally, 58% of these shooters said they trim their brass every time. Many might expect these guys to trim cases to length every time, but some of them don’t do it every firing. In fact, Austin Buschman told me he only trims cases after the 6th or 7th firing!
Buschman: “I don’t trim cases as frequently as most people. In fact, I can sometimes do several reloadings and maybe even a whole season without trimming my cases. That is just another step I don’t want to have to do, so I usually don’t trim until I absolutely have to. I will sometimes measure a dozen or so resized cases and try to find the longest one, and then I’ll put that in my rifle and close the bolt. Then, I’ll run a borescope down the barrel from the muzzle end and look at how much of a gap I have between the end of the case and the chamber. If it’s not close, I know I can go another firing without trimming my brass. I typically need to trim after 7 firings or something like that. I usually start out each year with 1,000 pieces of new brass and a lot of times, I can make it through an entire season without trimming my brass, which saves me a lot of time. I usually shoot 6,000 to 7,000 rounds in a season, so if I start with 1,000 pieces of brass and can use it 6 or 7 times without trimming – then I didn’t ever have to do that step.”
Austin is not recommending that you assume that you can go 6 or 7 firings before you trim. He explicitly said, “I’d never recommend someone load cases that exceed the max case length.” You heard him explain that he is checking his case length in the chamber of his rifle. Austin’s dies have been set up so that he has minimal growth in terms of case length on each firing. Your rifle’s chamber, and your reloading dies/press are different than his. Check your length!
Important Info on Correct Case Length from Berger’s Reloading Manual: “Each time you fire a piece of brass and resize it, it grows in length. Eventually, the case becomes too long to fit in the chamber. When this happens, the end of the case neck has nowhere to go when you chamber a round, and it actually crimps into the bullet itself thereby creating an excessively tight seal. This situation can cause gas pressures to skyrocket to dangerous levels, and serious injury or death could result.“ – Bryan Litz, Berger Reloading Manual
I don’t want to overstate Buschman’s position as the “norm” for the rest of these shooters. 58% of these pro shooters said they trim cases to length every time, which is the majority. I’d suspect many other shooters trim cases every 2nd or 3rd firing. But Buschman’s process at least helps you understand why many shooters may not trim to length every time they process brass. (Read about Buschman’s complete reloading setup and process.)
Two-time PRS Champ Austin Orgain was one of the shooters who said they trim their brass every time. I also interviewed Orgain last year and asked him: Why do you trim your cases every time?
“When you tumble your brass in a vibratory cleaner, you can sometimes get a neck that is rolled slightly in that process. Typically, what happens if a neck is rolled is when you seat a bullet, you will feel a little different seating pressure and might see a little sliver of copper roll up at the neck. While a lot of things people worry about when reloading don’t really matter, that is something that I have been able to tell matters in terms of performance. That’s why anytime I take a case out of the tumbler, I will run it through my Giraud Power Case Trimmer to chamfer and deburr each case. With the cartridges that we’re running, we don’t really get much case growth, so I don’t feel like I have to trim my cases after every firing. The Giraud trimmer is really just a fast way to chamfer and deburr the cases. If the cases are for a cartridge that I don’t load very often, I may not have the cartridge-specific bushing for the Giraud trimmer, and in those cases, I will simply chamfer the case neck using one of a Lyman Chamfer Hand Tool.” – Austin Orgain
So it isn’t that Austin Orgain thinks trimming is a required step or something he’d do every time if it required more effort or a separate operation. Orgain only does trims every time because he believes chamfering and deburring his brass is a critical step, and the Giraud tool he uses happens to do all of those operations at one time. I personally have the same process in my reloading, and it’s why I trim every time. I’d suspect many of the other shooters who trim every time are also using a tool like the Giraud Power Trimmer and likely played into why some of them said they trim every time. (Read about Orgain’s complete reloading setup and process.)
Running A Neck Mandrel
Then a little over half of them run a neck mandrel through it after sizing, which will set the inside diameter of their case neck. A neck mandrel helps ensure that the neck diameter and tension are consistent across all cases, which should help reduce variation in bullet release and minimize deviations in velocity. Full-length dies will size down the neck of the case by squeezing down the outside of the neck. That makes the outside diameter of the case consistent – but not necessarily the inside diameter. If the case neck wall thickness isn’t perfectly uniform between every case (and it rarely is), then the amount of neck tension from one case to another can vary. The question we are left asking is: Does it matter?
We have a large sample size of expert shooters, where roughly half ran their brass through a neck mandrel, and half didn’t – so we can actually gain some unique insight into that question! I asked each of these shooters what the standard deviation (SD) of their muzzle velocity was, which means we can analyze those numbers to see if those who used a neck mandrel every time ended up with lower SDs than those who didn’t.
And sure enough, there appears to be a difference! Here’s the data:
The 81 reloaders who used a neck mandrel every time had an average SD of 4.9, while the 94 reloaders who didn’t use a neck mandrel had an average SD of 6.0! While 1.1 fps might sound small, that is an 18% improvement!
Using a neck mandrel would theoretically provide a bigger benefit when brass neck thickness varied more from one piece to another, so I thought it would be interesting to see how much improvement you saw for different brands of brass. You can see those differences in the table above. Alpha showed the least improvement, which could point to it having the least variation in neck thickness, followed by Lapua, then Peterson, then Hornady. Now, we are inferring a lot there, but it is at least an interesting trend in the data. It is also interesting to see that a neck mandrel lowered the variation you saw in muzzle velocity for every brand.
Now we come back to the question: But does it matter? Ha! Does a 1.1 fps improvement in muzzle velocity SD mean you should add one more step to your brass prep? Well, that comes down to an individual decision and how much you value your time! We’ve taken the data as far as it can to give us insight into the level of improvement we might expect, and now it’s left to us to decide. (For a little more context, check out How Much Does SD Matter?)
Another insight from the original chart above was that 15% of these shooters clean their primer pockets every time. Honestly, I was a little surprised to see that percentage as high as it was, so it was worth noting.
What reloading steps do you do AT LEAST ONCE per batch of brass?
Now let’s look at what this group of elite marksmen said they don’t do every time but do at least once per batch of brass. To be clear, I didn’t ask how often they do these operations. It was simply framed as, “What operations do you NOT do every time but do at least once per batch of brass?” So they may do some of these things only once per batch, or they might do it as frequently as every other time.
Here are the results:
You can see that many of these people only anneal, trim, or chamfer and debur occasionally.
In fact, there were at least a few shooters who said they did each of the operations I had listed at least once on a batch of brass. That included turning necks, uniforming primer pockets, and sorting/culling brass by both weight and volume. However, those things were only done by a small minority of these shooters.
However, none of these “at least once” steps were represented by the majority of these top shooters. All of the percentages were well below 50%, which is an interesting note. I believe that means that the majority of these shooters do the same reloading process and steps in their brass prep every time they reload.
Is There A Difference In The Reloading Process For The Top 25?
I was curious if the guys at the very pinnacle of the PRS might have a slightly different reloading process. In 2024, there were 41 regular season PRS Pro Series matches (those are the national-level, two-day PRS matches), and the winner of 51% of those was decided by 2 points or less! In fact, 39% were determined by 1 point or less! 7 were ties that had to go the time on the skills stage as the tiebreaker to determine the match winner!
So, for those guys at the very top, finding a way to get 1 more impact could literally be the difference between a win or a loss! Does that mean they do a few extra things in their reloading process to gain even a slight competitive advantage?
Well, let’s look! The data below is identical to what I presented above, except I added the orange bars for comparison, which represent the percentage of shooters in the top 25 who said they did each step. This first chart is related to the reloading steps they said they performed every time they did brass prep.
Very interesting! It’s not that the shooters at the very top do more steps in their reloading process – they actually do slightly less across the board! It is precisely the opposite of what many people might expect!
In fact, look at trimming: 58% of the top 200 shooters said they trimmed every time, but only 44% of the top 25 said they trim every time.
Look at the neck mandrel! 54% of the top 200 said they used a neck mandrel, but only 44% of the top 25 said they run their brass through a neck mandrel! It’s that interesting?!
While that isn’t a huge difference, it really is across the board. Could it be that the guys at the very pinnacle of the PRS have been doing it long enough to know those OCD steps in the reloading process don’t actually add to your score?
But, maybe the top 25 don’t do some of the steps every time – but their percentage of steps they do occasionally has to go up, right? Well, here is that chart:
Not really! While there are slight differences, for the most part, the top 25 simply do fewer steps than the rest of the guys.
Last year, I also interviewed two-time PRS Champion Austin Orgain and asked about his reloading process. You can read his complete process at that link, but at one point, I asked Orgain, “So you don’t run your cases through a neck mandrel to set your case’s inside neck diameter?” He said, “Nope. I don’t run a mandrel at all. … I don’t know that it really matters, and for me, it seems like it’s probably past the point of diminishing returns and not even worth doing. To me, it’s definitely not worth doing if you have to add a whole additional step to your loading process to run your cases through mandrel. If you had a Dillon progressive loading setup where you could just add a mandrel die into your rotation, and it wouldn’t require a bunch of extra time or effort – maybe. But I’m not going to run all my brass through a mandrel if I’m doing it on a single-stage press.”
Next, I asked Orgain: “Do you ever neck turn your brass, uniform your primer pockets, or clean your primer pockets?” I remember Austin laughing, and then he said, “If I had to neck turn my brass, I’d quit! No, I don’t ever do any of that stuff!”
Now, that might sound flippant or like these guys simply aren’t precision reloaders. But, if you are thinking that, I know that you’ve never seen Austin Orgain shoot. It’s unbelievable what that guy can do with a rifle!
Remember, 66% of these top-ranked shooters reported that their ammo had an SD of 5 fps or less, which means they are only getting around 5 inches of vertical dispersion at 1000 yards! 60% said their average 5-shot group was 0.3 MOA or less! So, the majority of these guys are producing truly world-class ammo!
Austin Orgain and Austin Buschman have combined to win 3 golden bullets, which is the trophy awarded to the PRS shooter with the highest overall score at the end of the season. It may shock a few people to hear those two and the other top 25 do fewer reloading steps than other shooters, but maybe that is because many of them have literally fired 50,000+ rounds and have figured out some of those things are “past the point of diminishing returns and not even worth doing,” as Orgain explained.
I hope this helps you shooters who are trying to figure out what matters when reloading ammo for long-range shooting and what doesn’t! Maybe we should all spend a little less time at the reloading bench and a little more time behind the rifle! 😉
Pro Tip: Use Premium Brass
I can’t wrap up this article without mentioning that most of these guys are using brass from one of the premium manufacturers like Alpha and Lapua – and they are using brass that is all from the same lot. Many of the ones that I know in this group buy 1,000 pieces of brass from the same lot. If they weren’t using premium brass from the same lot, then they wouldn’t be able to achieve ammo that performs as well as theirs does – even if they added more steps into their reloading process.
That was something that took me years to learn. If you don’t start with high-quality brass, you’ll never add enough steps into your reloading process to make it into uniform, high-quality brass. When it comes to loading world-class ammo, much of it comes down to brass quality. My advice is to not cut corners on brass.
I’ll share a more detailed breakdown of the exact brands of brass these guys are using in an upcoming article and even give a breakdown of what brand they picked based on what cartridge they are running.
Coming Up Next
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Sensational write up on the reloading series. There sure is some valuable insight to assist many readers making decisions about their tools and processes. Thanks for putting in the effort Cal!
Thanks, Will! I’ll be honest … Half the reason I wrote this one was that I was curious myself! 😉 This is making me rethink how I do things.
With such a large sample size of expert reloaders, this stuff can give very valuable insight.
Thanks for taking the time to let me know you found it helpful!
Thanks,
Cal
Superb article! I don’t have access to 1K yard ranges. I was taught to reload 60 years ago by an acquaintance in New Mexico that was an avid Elk hunter. . I’m amazed at how many of the processes I routinely perform are used by PRS competitors. Your articles represent priceless knowledge to those engaged in all forms of accurate shooting. Keep up the good work. Your efforts are appreciated!
Thanks, John! I was taught how to reload by an old hunter, too. This info does certainly seem applicable to a lot of rifle shooting disciplines.
I appreciate you taking the time to let me know you enjoyed the content!
Thanks,
Cal
Hi Cal
Another very interesting article.
Everyone of these articles getting you thinking about what maybe you should change in what you are personally doing with your reloading steps.
That question of “Does it Matter” keeps popping up.
To neck mandrel or not is a great example, but when you look at the chart of the 4 different types of brass, you can clearly see the improvements.
This is the first year I have been able to keep my SD’s close to the magic 5 number. I have been looking at everything I do to improve my shooting.
These articles have helped me look at several things differently and helped me answer some of my “Does it Matter” questions.
Thanks
Paul
Thanks, Paul! I have personally been struggling with that exact question. Honestly, I’ve been running a neck mandrel in an additional step on my single-stage press … and you could probably see me wrestling with that as I wrote this post! 😉 I personally think it’s extremely unlikely that 1 fps lower SD would result in one more hit in the course of an entire season of shooting, so I’ll probably stop doing it.
One good alternative I’m considering is using the SAC Modular Sizing die along with their Decapping Expanding Mandrel.
Here is what Short Action Customs says about that product:
I’m pretty sure that would give the best of both worlds – I could ditch the extra operation, and still be setting the inside diameter of my cases with a mandrel … but all in one operation.
I think a big fallacy of mine is just because you can measure the improvement something provides doesn’t mean that it is worth it or even matters. Austin Buschman cleaned a two-day PRS match last year – with virgin brass! He told me he was using virgin Alpha brass right out of the box at that match. Don’t you have to do something to it?! 😉 I can say, I shot the PRS Finale for the 1st time last weekend – and I was using virgin Alpha brass straight out of the box. If it’s good enough for Buschman and Orgain to use, it isn’t going to hold me back either! 😉
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! This stuff challenges my views as much as anyone! That’s why I find it so interesting.
Thanks,
Cal
Trimming being so common every time really surprised me. I do not particularly enjoy trimming so I usually check a number of cases after sizing and if they’re well below max I just skip it. Maybe I should rethink that.
Rodney, I think so many of these guys trim every time because they are using a tool like a Giraud Power Trimmer to chamfer and debur – and it so happens that it will also trim all in the same step. I know that is why I do it every time, and also why Austin Orgain trims every time. Here is a little excerpt from my interview with Austin about reloading last year:
Why do you trim your cases every time?
So it’s not necessarily that they want to trim … its just the fastest way to chamfer and debur. I have my Giraud trimmer right by where I prime my cases, and it doesn’t add 3 seconds to chamfer/debur (and trim) right before I prime the case and load it.
If we had to do it in a seperate operation from our chamfer/debur … I’m sure you’d see trimming have a much lower percentage for a step that these pros do every time. At least that is my theory!
Thanks,
Cal
Very interesting, thanks for the reply.
This article does reinforce my belief that cleaning and uniforming the primer pockets isn’t particularly important.
It’s all excellent and useful information. Thanks for writing it.
Great article, thank you! This makes me wonder what steps the people reporting 1, 2, and 3 SD’s are doing.
Thanks, Lance. Glad you enjoyed the content. Thanks for taking the time to say that.
And that’s an interesting question. There was only 1 person who said they got 1 fps SD, and only 7 people who said 2 fps SD. So I don’t feel like those are a big enough sample size to draw any conclusions from. There were 15 that said 3 fps, but then again … that is a pretty small sample size. Everyone that is 3 fps or less would be 23, which is still a fairly small sample size in the grand scheme of things – and it’s on the extreme ends of a larger sample size. I say all that to say that its risky that maybe there is selection bias or any conclusions we learn from that edge group might not hold true in larger sample sizes.
But … 😉 … I did comb through the 23 people who reported SD’s of 3 fps or less to try to identify any potential patterns. I started by looking at the components this group used compared to our larger sample size. It seemed like the cartridge they were using was distributed roughly proportionally to the distribution of the entire sample size (e.g., there were lots of 6 Dashers, a few 6mm BR and BRA, a couple of 25 calibers, and 1 6.5 Creedmoor in that group). So there doesn’t appear to be a pattern to the specific cartridge, which was a bit surprising to me. The brass, bullets, powders, and primers also largely reflected the popularity among the larger group, too.
When it comes to reloading operations, one of the 23 reported their ammo SD as less than 3 fps, but didn’t select any of the operations at all – so I’d suggest we exclude that one from the results. Surely they do at least one of the operations every time, but they didn’t select any of them. There were just a couple of shooters out of the 200 who skipped those questions (because they actually load ammo that they sell to other shooters as a business). So that leaves us with a sample size of 22 that answered the reloading steps questions.
It did appear that 16 of the 22 run a neck mandrel, which is 73% – which is a little higher than the larger sample size. Is a 20% increase statistically significant here? By that I mean can you bet that it isn’t simply a result of natural variation in the data, and that the reported SD and that step in the reloading process are most likely related. I didn’t do the math, but I might doubt that it is. I’d probably call it anecdotal evidence, but it is interesting – and might be something.
20 of the 22 anneal every time, which is 91%. That is 22% higher than the larger sample size, so it could be something – or it might be natural variation in the data. That was the largest difference I saw for any reloading step from this sample size of shooters who reported 3 fps or less to the larger sample size.
73% said they trim every time, compared to 58% in the larger sample size. That is a difference of 15%, so again it might might be in the noise, but is interesting anecdotal data.
All of the other reloading steps are within 10% of what was reported by the larger sample size – and I’d say that is too small of a change to be considered meaningful.
I guess my biggest surprise was that the smallest numbers weren’t largely represented by the 6 BR cartridges. Those really small cartridges (6 Dasher, 6 BRA, 6 BR) are known for being “the easy button for reloading” and often give very tiny SDs without much load development (if any). While there were a lot of those cartridges represented, I didn’t expect to also see a 6.5 Creedmoor, a 25 Creedmoor, a couple of 25×47 Lapua, a 6 GT, and even one 22 GT among the group of shooters who claimed to have SDs of 3 fps or less. That was probably the most surprising part of this for me.
The annealing and neck mandrel steps might be more than anecdotal evidence, or at least raise a question that would require further research to draw a scientific conclusion from. Real data analysis (and most scientific research) often raises more questions than it will answer! That might be the case here.
Of course we have to resist confirmation bias here. At some level we want to say, “Well it makes sense that those things would improve your SD, so I’m going to interpret that as truth.” That is confirmation bias: the tendency of people to favor information that confirms or strengthens their beliefs or values and is difficult to dislodge once affirmed.
Bryan Litz and the team at Applied Ballistics did some serious research that was published in Modern Advancements for Long Range Shooting Volume II where they fired cases 10 times. One group cases they never annealed, another group they annealed only after the 5th firing, and the third group they annealed every time it was fired. They carefully recorded the velocities of every shot from all 3 groups, and expected to see that the group of cartridges that were annealed more frequently had SDs that were smaller than the group that wasn’t annealed ever over the 10 firings. You should read the full study, but their surprising conclusion was the data “showed that annealing didn’t make any difference in the live fire testing.” A paragraph or two down, they added this commentary: “We’re not giving up on the value of annealing. I believe there are circumstances where annealing your brass can improve consistency. The minimal testing we’ve done so far only shows that annealing isn’t always necessary to make good consistent ammo for many firings. Where annealing does matter is the subject of ongoing research that will be published in a later volume of Modern Advancements.”
I’ve personally had conversations with Bryan and the AB team about that research project and results in particular, and honestly, the data surprised them. I’d say any good research project is going to have data that surprises you or at least introduces more questions than it answers. Bryan and I even talked about me redoing that test (along with some others) to see if a completely different research project produced similar data. I hope to do that at some point!
I just mention that other project to help us not draw too strong of conclusions based on the sample size of 22 people. That is a much larger sample size than what most shooters base their opinions on, because that is typically just their own experience or the experience of the loudest and most opinionated guy on the forum. 😉 But, from an objective and purely data-driven perspective, I would caution to say it was conclusive.
At the very least, it was interesting! Obviously you peaked my interest, because I went back to investigate. It does make me even more interested to reproduce a few of Bryan Litz’s handloading tests that were published in Modern Advancements for Long Range Shooting Volume II. Maybe I’ll get around to that sooner rather than later!
Thanks,
Cal
Hi Cal,
Thank you for bringing these hot topic articles in such an easy to read and digestible format to us. I do appreciate it very much. Cannot argue with the results that these top performers are getting.
Kind regards,
Maré
Thanks, Mare! I agree! It’s hard to argue with the results these guys are getting, which is what is so powerful about this sample of data. It’s hard to sort out who actually knows what they are talking about on forums, but clearly all of these guys are getting world-class results. So we’d be wise to learn from them.
And I appreciate you saying that its been presented in a way that was easy to read and digest. I put A LOT of effort towards that, so I appreciate you saying that it landed!
Thanks,
Cal
Cal, fantastic article (as always).
I find it interesting that when a neck mandrel is used, the Hornady brass yields the best muzzle velocity SD. I don’t know if the sample size of that specific subset is big enough to draw conclusions, and maybe other processes are going on that aren’t captured (like brass sorting), but if it holds, then Hornady brass is a bargain, especially if one shoots their match ammo first and then reloads.
All the Best,
Joe
Hey, Joe. Your hunch is right. The Hornady brass had the fewest shooters represented, so it’s likely the result of the natural variation you could see in a small sample size. There were only 2 shooters who said they used Hornady brass and ran a neck mandrel – so that average is only based on those 2 people. For context, the Peterson neck mandrel data was based on 4 shooters, the Lapua was 27 and the Alpha was 61. So both the Hornady and Peterson data are based on a relatively low sample size. The Peterson did have 4 people use a mandrel and 4 people not use a mandrel, so the total sample size is 8 – but that is still pretty low. Lapua had over 50 total and Alpha had over 100. You could probably take those two to the bank, but maybe take the Hornady and Peterson data with a grain of salt.
I would say that it would be very atypical for Hornady brass to produce the smallest SDs. If it did, then all of these shooters would be using it. But most of them are using Alpha and Lupua. I plan to do a future article showing brass popularity by brand, but I’ll just leave it at that for now. I wouldn’t rush out and buy a bunch of Hornady brass! 😉
Thanks,
Cal
I don’t see much information on bullet concentricity. Is this something that has been ruled out as having any significant impact on ammo group size or is it one of the benefits of premium brass?
Interesting observation, Eric. I assume you are referring to measuring the concentricity of the bullet on a loaded round. I remember that I used to measure that, and might sort my loaded ammo by it. I had a buddy who would only take rounds to a match that indexed at 0.000” runout, and everything else was practice ammo.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t done that in a long time, so I didn’t include that as a QA step for their guys to say whether they did or not. I can say with 99.9% certainty that Austin Buschman and Austin Orgain don’t do that, just because I’ve had in-depth conversations with them about their reloading process. I think I’d be surprised if many of these guys do that. The fact that some clean their primer pockets every time tells me that those people might, because that is a pretty detailed step to do every time.
I would bet the premium dies, brass, and bullets probably has something to do with not checking that as often as some reloaders might.
It’s a good question! Sorry I don’t have the data to answer it with.
Thanks,
Cal
I just enjoy alll of your articles…..one I would like to see……under the
“ Is it worth it”…….can you save money reloading anymore?……I’m thinking not……
Thanks, Pierre! I’m glad you’re enjoying the articles!
I was thinking about summing up all of the prices on the popular equipment to figure out the total cost if you bought a setup that is similar to what most of these pros are likely running. So with your encouragement, maybe I will!
I did analyze that a few years back, and you can find that here: https://precisionrifleblog.com/2015/04/01/the-cost-of-handloading-vs-match-ammo/
I think if your goal is simply to reload functional ammo, then maybe you can save money – although I think if you include even minimum wage as your hourly rate, it may still not pencil. Most people calculate their time as free when reloading, and I think that is shortsighted, personally.
If you are loading match-grade ammo that would be capable of competing at the highest level of the PRS – then, no. I don’t think you’re saving money. You are likely making ammo that is better than any factory ammo available, but I’d bet you are in the red compared to what you’d spend buying match-grade factory ammo.
Honestly, I almost always try to discourage my closest friends from getting into reloading for that reason. I think people see it as a way to save some money – but I’m fairly certain it’s more expensive if you calculate all the equipment and time invested.
So I’d say your hunch is probably right!
Thanks,
Cal
Pierre, I just wanted to give you a quick update. I spent a couple of hours last night redoing my analysis on whether reloading saves money or not, and it was closer than that I thought. I’ll probably do an article to share the updated numbers I put together, but it wasn’t as clear of as I thought it might be. With inflation, the price of lots of things have changed since I published that last article. I’m not saying that you can clearly save money by reloading with all this fancy equipment, but it at least wasn’t as clear of a choice as I thought it was when I wrote my original reply to you above. So I at least wanted to mention that.
Thanks,
Cal
Cal, in reading your latest reloading article, I find myself wondering how standard deviation is lowered by using a mandrel. I suspect that it evens out the neck tension more so than an expanding ball being pulled through from the bottom. Yes, no? When I next size my 65 Creedmoor brass, Starline brand, I just neck size it down to the desired inside diameter and don’t use an expanding ball. My standard deviations run between five and nine. Most reloads between five and seven. keep up the good work. I really enjoy your articles. T.
That’s a good question, Tom. I would think you are right. I know that Short Action Customs makes a big deal about their expanding mandrels doing the operation on the downstroke, compared to the expanding ball doing it on the upstroke. Here is what they say on their product page:
That is how I’ve understood it, although I can say that you asking the question made me realize that I’m not sure why I believe that. I certainly haven’t ever tested it myself, so I realize now I’m just kind of taking it at face value or parroting back what someone else said matters … which is kind of how a lot of us got into doing all the extra steps in our reloading process in the first place! 😉 But that is the only justification for why it is “better” that I am aware of.
I would say that most of the precision shooters I know are doing something similar to you, where they have removed the expander ball from their die. Regardless of whether they are going to also run it through a neck mandrel, they don’t use an expander ball. I didn’t ask these guys if they use an expander ball or not, so I don’t have hard data on what these guys do, unfortunately.
Honestly, I would say that if you are getting SDs of 5-9 fps – don’t change anything! As long as I’m the single-digits, I would comfortably take that ammo to a match. This article quantifies what going from 10 fps to 5 fps would do to your hit probability at long-range. It’s based on a pretty advanced statistical model, but breaks it down into practical terms: How Much Does SD Matter?
Being in that 5-7 fps range definitely makes me feel more confident or warm and fuzzy about it. One thing to mention about SD is that the size of the sample matters A LOT! I’d say any SD calculated over less than 10 shots is likely understated. If you are trying to compare two loads, then 20 shots is honestly required. For ammo that I make for ELR matches, I typically do closer to 30 shots. So any time I’m referring to SDs, I’m always talking about a 10 or 20 shot string. Muzzle Velocity Stats – Statistics for Shooters Part 2
Thanks,
Cal
I don’t understand the numbers on the “do it at least once” chart. For example, about 20% say they anneal or trim at least once. However, about 60% say they always anneal and trim on the “do it every time” chart, above. It seems like the numbers on the “do it at least once” chart should be equal to or greater than the numbers on the “do it at least once” chart.
Hey, David. I see the confusion. It sounds like you are saying if they did it every time, isn’t by definition “at least once”? So shouldn’t “at least once” be the superset? That’s a good question, and I appreciate you voicing it, because there are probably other people wondering that, too.
Here’s where I tried to clarify that part towards the start of the article:
But, honestly it’d probably be easier to understand if you saw exactly how the question was framed on the survey:
The way I’m thinking about it, 69% said they anneal every time and 22% said they anneal at least once per batch of brass. That totals 91%, so I am taking that as 91% is the total number of people that anneal either every time or at least once per batch – which means 9% of these shooters never anneal. So I think if you add the two together, you’d get the superset like you are thinking about it.
Ultimately, I’m just reporting what they checked on the survey to those 2 specific questions.
Hope that helps!
Thanks,
Cal