I'm breech seating in my Ballard 32-40. I'm cheap so I made 2 seaters out of 32-40 cases by inserting a steel rod in them. One case the rod if flush with the case mouth, the other is longer and seats the bullet into the rifling. I forget how far, and I'm not near it now. I drop the bullet into the chamber, insert the shorter case, use the action to cram the shell in, and repeat with the longer seater. My question is this: Will this loosen my action, or otherwise damage my rifle?
Thanks

Think I would try and find a proper seating tool. It would give you more adjustment options and might save you extra wear in your linkages. Just my two cents worth...



JMH

First of all, I would make sure that the longer one goes in with zero effort with no bullet in the rifle. You don’t want steel scraping the lands. I prefer brass or even wood for that protrusion. As far as loosening the action it depends on how hard it is to close. Like Mr Turner said that’s are tools for that. There are a couple of $22.50 32-40 push seaters on eBay.  If you want one I will close the auction and sell one for $25 shipped 

Jack

I will send a PM and mail one out Friday when I get back to town. Did you see the 2 on eBay?  Pick one.
Here are the links

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I delisted them but the link should work for a while