I need someone to explain breech seating with smokeless powder. And maybe a little bit on BP.

I have a bullet mold for a tapered bullet. I have a RW breech seater.


I understand that the bullet base should be around 1/16th in front of the case mouth. I understand that the rifling should engrave some, if not most, of the base band. A little puzzlement there because of the differences in throat, ball seat, leade, freebore, and all those terms we bandy about. 

I understand I can fill the 38-55 case with BP, cap off with a veg wad, and fire away. Are all rifles accurate with his load? What if I want to use 50 gr  of Swiss FFg? Stack the wads?

I understand that if I use smokless, do NOT place the wad on the powder. How can one be certain the "wad" will stay off the powder? Can/may I place the wad just below the mouth of the case with smokeless? I understand that placement of the wad is a way to tune/adjust groups. 

Ignorance breeds concerns. Please enlighten me. I have searched here and the internet but no one (that I could find) discusses my questions.

In regards to seating depth I would start out with engraving the bullet the entire length of the baseband. I would shy away from using wads with smokless unless you cannot get the case into the chamber without spilling powder into the action. Tuning is more dependant on powder and primer choice and not the use of wads based on my own long term experience.

If you have any concerns about the bullet sealing simply breach seat a bullet, insert a case with the primer only and pop it. Count off roughly 15 seconds and open the action and if properly sealed the case will pop out and don't stand behind it. Wad up a towel or some other means to catch it when it comes out. Now knock the bullet out and also look for any signs of the gases leaking beyond the base and up the side or sides of the bullet if there are none and the case pops out you have a good gas seal and the simplest way of finding out and then knowing full well.

JLouis

Red Cent, with respect to breech seating with black powder, I just use the amount of powder that will fill the case to nearly the top and add a 0.030" veg wad.   I honestly haven't seen much change at 200m by going with a little less powder.

I'd say that most rifles will be a little better breech seated with black than they will be with black and fixed ammo.  All of my .32-40's and .38-55's are like this.

It isn't quite as simple as it sounds though.  You still have to find a bullet that works well.  In one of my CPA's in .38-55 it took quite a while to get it working right.  Interestingly, the Hoch mold sold by CPA for breech seating in their rifles was not at all good. 

The most extreme example I have of accuracy increases with BP and breech seating came from a rifle a friend used to own.  An ugly Ruger #1 with an RKS barrel chambered in .32-40.  It had been subjected to the abuse of a seriously bad home gunsmith.    My friends BP loads shot about 2 moa at 100m from the bench.  I brought a plugged .32-40 case and a bunch of cases filled with FFg and some bullets of various designs.   When I tried it with the Hoch 200g semi spitzer it immediately shot under 1 moa.   That rifle is sitting in my safe now but I don't use it much anymore.

Chris.

Thank you for your responses. As usual I will archive these in my Reloading Single Shots folder.

I or anyone else not in the business can very easily tell you what it is you might need but if it doesn't work out for you, you would simply be screwed out of your hard earned dollars. And neither I or any of the others here would be more than willing to make it right but Steve Brooks would.

Here is one that you might like to try. It was designed by me and several LR shooters, on this forum.

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Frank

Frank that's not too dissimilar to the one I ended up using in my CPA.  Mine is a touch shorter and tapers to 0.368" rather than 0.370" though.

It works extremely well with black powder in that particular CPA. 

Chris.