How Tight Do You Seat A Bullet?

[Yukon Gold]

Another Nubie Question:

Just how tight / hard do you seat a bullet? This is specifically aimed at a Ruger Old Army - but I assume it would apply to all.

Do I crank it down as hard as I can?  Could I "damage" to powder? Or do I just go for a snug fit without exerting too much pressure?

[yooper]

I put pressure on the ball until it "feels tight"...I don't know how to explain it...You can feel everything compress but it only goes so far..I giess you could rid a loading stand on a standard bathroom scale and come up with a fairly consistant pressure... I never really thought about it before.  :shock:  I'll keep an eye on this thread. Good luck!

[DakotaDan]

I also use enough pressure to moderately compress BP charge -- something less than what I think can bend the loading arm. Has anyone thought of making a torque wrench style ball seater to consistently apply pressure in seating the ball? Probably overkill and unnecessary, but I always wonder if the charge is overly compressed. (As long as it shoots, I guess it doesn't really matter.)
-d

[Gatofeo]

I seat the greased felt wad or ball to the point where I feel stiff (but not strong) resistance. It's a subjective feeling that is hard to explain.
I've often thought that a nice feature on cap and ball revolvers would be a dial of numbers engraved on the frame, with an arrow engraved on the rammer.
As you pushed down the rammer, the arrow would move through a rainbow shaped list of numbers 1-10 or more. I think 0 should be the face of the rammer is even with the top of the chamber. 1 would be the rammer 1/16th of an inch below the chamber level. 2 would be 1/8 (2/16) and so on.
When the rammer is down as far as it will go, the arrow should point to 10 (or whatever) on the rammer.
In practice, let's imagine you're using a Colt 1851 Navy in .36 caliber. I pick this model because it has a long rammer, compared to the Remington and later Colts.
Let's say you drop 20 grains of Goex FFFG black powder in a chamber then add a greased, felt wad. You ram the wad down until it's firmly on the powder. The arrow on your rammer points to 6.
You now know that with 20 grains of Goex FFFG black powder, each wad may be seated to the 6 level and be firm on the powder. So, you do that with all wads.
Now, you seat a .380 inch ball. The rammer arrow points to 3 when the ball is seated firmly on the wad. Now, you seat all .380 inch balls to the 3 level on your rammer.
This would be much easier than bringing a kitchen scale and it's completely portable because it's part of the revolver. For cap and ball revolvers, it would be more consistent than eyeballing (though not as precise as using a torque or scale).
Of course, you'd have to experiment with each load to learn its particular number(s).
This would likely be of greater interest to target shooters and tinkerers like myself than to most shooters.
Can't you just see it at the range?
"Welllllllll ... no wonder your groups opened a bit. You seated the balls to a 5 and everyone knows you need to seat to a 4 for 25 yards and a 4.7 for 50 yards," espouses the local know-it-all. "And you should be using a .379 ball instead of a .380 inch, with sifted Xtreme FF-1/2 black powder and a Whoozit plastic cap. Sheesh ... where'd you ever learn to shoot, from that nasty ol' desert cat Gatofeo?"   :roll:  

The use of a dial indicator on a cap and ball might be an interesting experiment. Who knows? Such consistency might make a difference on the target.
Frankly, I think the difference would be so slight that you'd need a cap and ball with a handgun scope to determine any difference.
Hmmmmm... sounds like another interesting project ...