Anybody ever try breech seating?

1
I couldn't decide if I should put this in Black Powder or Reloading, as plenty of people breech seat with smokeless, but here it is.

My new Swedish Rolling Block has a wildly oversize throat. It also has a pretty sloppy neck. The bore is just fine. I'm going to try jamming some tapered .323" base .32-40 bullets in to the rifling a ways and see what I get. I have heard it suggested that engraving the rifling about half way in to the base band of the bullet is a good starting place. Any other thoughts or suggestions would be more than welcome.

I am also going to try some .329" cast bullets designed for the 8x56 Manlicher seated in cases. While the groove diameter of the barrel is .323", I have read of others with similar oversize throat situations in these rifles having good luck with the .329.

For those of you who have no idea what the fuck I am talking about, but have read this far: Breech seating is the practice of manually pushing a bullet in to the rifling and then placing a primed and charged case in to the chamber behind it. This was an accuracy technique used by target shooters in the late nineteenth century. It essentially does what is now done with tight neck chambers in benchrest guns in the modern age. That is, bullet alignment as it enters the rifling is extremely important to accuracy. You may think it sounds like a ton of work, but you don't have to size or manicure your cases between uses, just deprime, reprime and charge. No seating of bullets in cases either, which has the added benefit of eliminating the chance of bullet damage in that operation.

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

2
I really hadn't thought to try it. It does sound safe, sounds easy, and it sounds accurate. So, what the heck? I'll try it with my old Turk. I'm loading some cast boolits to check point of impact for the postal match in comparison to Turk milsurp, so I'll try it and see what's what. Since I load single shots, that is, I don't fill the box magazine, there will be no danger of subsequent boolits moving in the magazine.

To partially seat the boolit first, I'll use a case with no powder or primer to set my die for initial seating. Or do you just stuff it into the belled opening and have at it? I'm interested.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

3
Take an empty unprimed case and take a piece of wood or brass rod close to bullet diameter (but a bit smsller) and shove the rod in to the case until it reaches the base. Cut of the rod (perfectly square and flat) so about 1/16" sticks out of the mouth. Drop a bullet in to the chamber and the plugged case behind it and chamber the whole mess. It may take some force to seat the bullet. Some use mechanical seaters with a lever. Some just push. Some use a little hammer. Once it is in, extract the plugged case and replace it with one that's primed and charged.

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

4
I'm missing how to seat the bullet with the plug in the case.

I can picture seating the bullet in my press but not pressing it all the way down, then chambering the primed and powdered mess against the ends of the rifling. Is that the goal, to get the front of the bullet to touch the rifling before shooting?

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

6
Oh, I get it now. That's a good link.

I was a tad worried because cast of course are much softer than jacketed, but now that I see the pusher makes a dimple in the bullet which is then seated in the press, it makes sense.

I'll try it.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

7
No. The press is never used to seat the bullet and the bullet is never seated in the case. The bullet is inserted in to the barrel ahead of the case, the seater pushes it in a little ways and then the charged case without a bullet is inserted behind the bullet.

Imagine the first microsecond after firing a normally loaded cartridge, when the bullet has just left the case and entered the rifling. That's where you want the bullet before firing when you breech seat.

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

8
The theory is clear to me, but the practice now seems a bit unsafe. It means I have to charge the case just before I load the rifle. That is good for black powder, but I'm hesitant to do it with smokeless, hauling a box of 20 charged cases without bullets to the range. I have to think on it. The idea about increased accuracy remains interesting.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

12
I've been googling for a while and I can't (yet) find 8mm corks. I do have some .308 corks left over from some cheap shots I drank last Friday down town, which will work if I don't fill the case. The shots weren't all the way full either, which explains the dozen corks...

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

14
If I gently bell the mouth, I can use the gas checked boolits and just stuff 'em in a tad. It's a Mauser, so I'll have to slip the bolt out, hook the rim to the extractor, slip the bolt back in, then close the bolt gently. The Old Turk has a fairly heavy trigger, so I think I will avoid an AD while I'm closing the bolt.

What do you think? I'm not quite a Rocket City Redneck, as I think "safety first."

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Anybody ever try breech seating?

16
I have a Pope rifle that did not come with a breech seater or false muzzle. The simple solution was to machine a mild steel rod to .318 so that stops a tiny bit past the case mouth. I threaded the rear end to take a knob and drilled a similar size hole in the base of a 32/40 shell. I pan melted some beeswax to a 1/8" thickness. After priming and measuring powder into cases, I simply pushed them through the beeswax to form a seal. The bullet is pushed into the case with the close fitting rod withdrawn half way and is then inserted in the breech. Pressure on the knob seats the bullet concentrically in the breech.

Ideal made this breech seating tool to use with Winchester high walls and other schuetzens that did not offer a straight path to the breech.

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