I think I also need to consider "brass variance"... I talked with Glenn Fewless about this issue (I mailed my Sharps barrel off to him to install scope blocks) and he suggested I look into brass issues, specifically the thickness of the brass as you get closer to the case head, given how short the 40-50 SS is, and how deeply seated the bullets are in those blown out 30-40 Krag cases. In reloading a new batch, I noticed that the bullets are a slip fit for the first .300 inch into the case, then it suddenly gets very tight, to the degree I think it is swaging the base of the bullets a bit. I can definitely feel a "2-step" when seating the bullets... effortless for the first .300, then you hit a step and it starts to take a good bit of pressure to seat the bullet the last .300 inch, and that is not due to compressing the black powder. I annealed the cases, and that helped some. I test chambered a bunch of new loads, and now some of them come out with even rifling engraving all around. But most are still not perfectly concentric. I use a Meacham inline seater, so I don't think it is my reloading technique. I'm leaning now on the assumption that the variations are caused by variations in the case thickness, especially since I can feel distinct variations when seating the bullets.... some are a lot tighter than others, and these are all fire-formed cases with no sizing. The annealing helped, and today I shot my best groups yet... nothing competitive, but under 2" at 100 yards for the first time, and the dispersion is much more even and I'm now seeing some consistency in the patterns. I don't think you can "neck turn" brass down for a length of .600 inch, so I'm not sure of the solution, short of ordering cases from Rocky Mountain Cartridge based on a chamber cast. Maybe I'll try a sample of Rocky Mountain cases and see how that goes, and continue fiddling with my current bunch of cases. Thanks Glenn for the good advice, and I'll attempt a chamber cast to verify that issue. Vic
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