Sierra tipped match King

[Kimber]

I am reloading sierra tipped match King 308- 175 gr. with 43.7 grains of Varget, this is a compressed load. My die is a hornady free float seating die. This load is great in my semi auto, but I am damaging the bullets when I seat them, COL 28.000. Even when I lower the powder load to 40.00 I still leave indents on the bullets. Is anyone having this problem? Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong?

 

[sloughfoot]

That little line on the bullet is what happens.

 

[oldpink]

A recommendation for you here would be to contact Hornady and have them make you a custom bullet seating plug for those bullets to minimize the marks.
I'm unsure if Hornady makes those, but I know for a fact that RCBS does, as I had them make me one for my 225 grain Hornady FTX .452 caliber bullets, and it cost $16.
I just sent them three bullets to use for machining the plug, then waited (about six weeks) for the new plug to arrive, complete with all three bullets I had sent, one of which had some ink on the nose.
You can call Hornady at 1-800-338-3220 to ask whether they also perform this service.
They're in Nebraska, and they're on Central Time, consequently their site indicates their hours are 8AM - 5PM Monday-Thursday and 8AM - 4:30PM Friday.
I'd call them as close to the top of the hour at 9AM Eastern Time (where we are, of course) as possible to make your on hold time as short as possible.

 

[Kimber]

Thank you, I will call in the morning

 

[Leo]

I have made multiple custom seaters over the years. You don't even need a lathe. Chuck a stock seater in a power drill and holding a drill bit in a vise, drill the hole over size. Spinning the part makes sure the hole stays concentric. Put some good expoy or something like devcon in the hole and install in your press. With a good layer of grease on the bullet you want to use, run the bullet into the still soft glue. Pull it out after about 10 minutes and let the epoxy set up over night. Cheap, not difficult, fast, and works perfectly. When I first started using AMax bullets, I had to make extra stems for every rifle caliber I had.

 

[Kimber]

Thanks for the advices. I am going to try loading of few rounds with CFE, I am thinking that I am damaging the Tmk because of the length of the bullet and the lack of room in the case from loading with varget. CFE is a spherical powder so I should have a little more room in the case. Will let you all know how it goes.

 

[baba]

Side question - what kind of velocity are you getting with that powder charge? In at least one of my manuals that is over the max.

-Brian

 

[Kimber]

Baba in my hornady book its a hot load. The sierra web page is where I got the information. This was one of eight loads I made up and was the hottest. I had no pressure issues with this load and it was very accurate at 1000 yards. This was shot from a La Rue 308 16" barrel