Thread: Headspace gauge/ case head separation

Greetings all,
I struggled with setting headspace on my brass for decades. For years I neck sized brass, which brought its own set of problems, and meddled with setting the die of the shell holder with a feeler gauge. Nothing, I repeat nothing is half as convenient or accurate as using the Hornady headspace comparator together with the Redding Competition shell holder set to achieve consistent headspace on my sized brass.
Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings all,
I struggled with setting headspace on my brass for decades. For years I neck sized brass, which brought its own set of problems, and meddled with setting the die of the shell holder with a feeler gauge. Nothing, I repeat nothing is half as convenient or accurate as using the Hornady headspace comparator together with the Redding Competition shell holder set to achieve consistent headspace on my sized brass.
Regards Grandpamac.

Yep redding comp shell holders are absolutely fantastic
The other way to do it is find a tight ish bit of fired brass and take the decapping rod out of your die.
Start sizing with the 10.000 holder and work down 2.000 at a time till you have bolt closing tension you require.
Alot of my cases of diferenf chambers sit at 6.000 which means if I didn't use them I would have between 6.000 to 7.000 head space which for me fixed case head separation I was having problems with.
For those of you who just undo their die a fraction at a time it has been proven to be quite an inaccurate way to gain exact replication of head space.
A redding podcast explained why it is so!

Sent from my SM-A556E using Tapatalk

It's a funny old thing, years back we were taught to never wind the die in hard and lock it solid as that way it can float and not push the case of too one side with an affect on the neck runout. If only we knew how bad it was for headspace!!!

This is how I do it now.
IMO for hunters anything from 0.002" to 0.005" would be fine as you tend to lose cases in the field.
The tape is a good trick.
To measure bump u can get away with a pistol case.
I just use a short length of brass with a hole drilled down the centre to give u a "tube" of brass. It's about 20mm in diameter. I have two. One for 223 and another 30.06. The hole in the brass sits about halfway down the shoulder. Just sit over the nech/shoulder and use dial caliper to measure.

Having said that I'm sure the Hornady comparator would be better and more consistant. I don't neck size any more.

https://youtu.be/htvk1UYOXm8?si=UlPxVmkwpUJeWBT5

Originally Posted by No.3

It's a funny old thing, years back we were taught to never wind the die in hard and lock it solid as that way it can float and not push the case of too one side with an affect on the neck runout. If only we knew how bad it was for headspace!!!

Greetings @No.3 and all,
There were a lot of things touted as fact that many find hilarious these days. Regrettably many can not let go old beliefs that were debunked decades back. We each develop our craft of handloading in different ways and at different speeds. It is well over 50 years since I timidly put my first handload together. A .303 with a 180 grain Norma projectile and 34 grains of AR2201 powder. Decades later I am loading 150 grain Hornady projectiles in my .303 in neck sized cases with a light 34 grain load of AR2206H for around 2,100 fps. Some things change but others not so much.
GPM.