Maximum seating depth for hornady 53 g v-max 223

[warbucks]

Hi Lads. (maximum bullet seating depth for Hornady 53g v-max in 223)
I have a powder weight that i'm happy with, so tried copying factory Sako 50g bullet seating depth, as its very accurate with these's (there seated very deep) when i tried this the Lee bullet seating die, depth adjustment bottomed out at maximum seating depth, this was just short of what the factory Sako's were and measured 2.200, in shooting them i was pleased and happy with the result's, however when i then tried to make some more, i was funding that some of the bullets were not being gripped enough by the neck and shoving back into the case, after mucking about with the collet neck sizer, which appeared to be work as it should ??? it seemed to me that the bullets were not being gripped because they were pushed too far into the neck possibly on to the tapered bit ???
Any help and advise please.

Dave (warbucks)

[223AI]

Hi Lads. (maximum bullet seating depth for Hornady 53g v-max in 223)
I have a powder weight that i'm happy with, so tried copying factory Sako 50g bullet seating depth, as its very accurate with these's (there seated very deep) when i tried this the Lee bullet seating die, depth adjustment bottomed out at maximum seating depth, this was just short of what the factory Sako's were and measured 2.200, in shooting them i was pleased and happy with the result's, however when i then tried to make some more, i was funding that some of the bullets were not being gripped enough by the neck and shoving back into the case, after mucking about with the collet neck sizer, which appeared to be work as it should ??? it seemed to me that the bullets were not being gripped because they were pushed too far into the neck possibly on to the tapered bit ???
Any help and advise please.

Dave (warbucks)

They'd have to be seated pretty deep to be completely past the bearing surface of the bullet, is the mouth of the case past the base of the ogive (transition flat bearing surface to curved section) Are you definitely getting enough neck tension? Take an unprimed neck sized case, insert a bullet and push the tip of the bullet against something hard, if you can push it in chances are then you're not getting enough tension I've had this issue in .308 with a collet die when using a hand press as I couldn't give enough force to size correctly due to the weak linkage.

Did you have any pressure signs? Assuming you are talking 50 gr arrowhead they use 50 gr nosler BTs which are 0.8" long the 53 gr v-max are 0.829" long (apparently google search) so all else being equal (which it may not be, but for argument's sake) you are seating the v-max 0.029" further into the case if that makes sense. If you're not near max hopefully no issues but you are lowering the volume so pressure will increase to some extent.

The fact that you are seating them 'quite deep' may explain why the seating die is struggling, though just looking at Hodgdon's load data they recommend a COAL of 2.20" in their load data for this bullet so it shouldn't be over deep.