well my 20 y.o. RCBS precision mic got me out of another jam today. I was having hell closing the bolt on some 260 loads. After all I have read about the 700's fragile bolt I'm surprised it is still attached to the rifle.
how many times have I told myself
check your brass after sizing (before loading with powder and bullets) to see if it feeds and cycles etc. Have the gun where you are loading....not out in the safe!
next, when you decide on a bullet seating depth....check it again
in the rifleso anyway I knew better and did not check anything, got out to the range and it was hard to close the bolt on a few rounds....okay....
a few dozen rounds. Like I said before, I'm surprised the handle and the bolt are still married.
so I told myself well the darn bullets are seated too far out...they are light for caliber and get fat quicker! so I checked the depth and played around with it and resized the brass. uh oh....trying to cycle the brass and nothing has changed. about half of them do not want to get chambered. so maybe its not the bullets after all...isn't this reloading stuff supposed to be fun? so I took it in stride and continued to look for an answer. Out comes the RCBS precision mic...and I'm thinking...there is no way those shoulders need to get pushed back....they are pushed back far enough! besides when you push em back to far you have too much headspace and misfires and all kinds of fun
so I had some new brass to check it against. sure enough the shoulders were blown out too far. the sizing die got screwed in some more until the resized brass matched the new brass and all was good.
the first and only precision mic that I bought was for a 30-06 so I just cut off the end of a springfield case to make up the distance so I could use the tool for .308 and its derivatives
In summary, the RCBS is a really good tool. they have another piece that measures the ogive? of the bullet. There are a lot of gizmos for a reloader to blow hard earned money on and some are more useful than others but this is a good one to have. IIRC the stoney point comparator is similar but may be caliber specific.
