Hornady OAL Gauge

This is a more generalized question but hopefully someone can assuage my overthinking...

I’m not a complete beginner when it comes to reloading as I’ve been doing it for a few years but at the same time being military with deployments mixed in I’m not as experienced as I should be. Anyway, I was reloading .303 British today using a Forester Ultra Micrometer searing die I recently acquired in conjunction with a Hornady OAL Gauge to seat the bullet based on the ogive. Using a modified case I measured the depth a few times and based my ogive seating depth of 2.344 off the average. Even with the Forester die my seating depth measurement varied anywhere from a thousandth to a hundredth of an inch (+/-). I realize this isn’t much, but when I trying to work up for accuracy I’d like to eliminate as many variables as possible.

So I guess my question comes down to this, should I actually be seeing any variations in ogive measurement with the Forester die? And if so, how much will the thousandth and hundredth variation effect accuracy/grouping?

I wouldnt loose sleep over 1 thou or 100th of an inch I would be more inclined to worry about neck tension your not driving a $15000 1/3rd of a minute rifle I set my COAL length against a POF MKVII round as I think with the liberal measurements of the Lee minute variations wont matter, I anneal my rounds necks every time.

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

I anneal my rounds necks every time.

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That's a lot of work...you must have one of those auto machines for that?

Measure the cartridge OAL of box of military/factory ammo and compare with your reloads for perspective. The snipers used these factory rounds exclusively.

Yep Jim I brought one about 18 months ago a Annealing Made Perfect (AMP) machine that uses adjustable settings for different makers of brass including neck turned up to 3 thou off it does a fantastic job.
The Lapua brass changes colour a bit in the 308 but in my 6.5 x 284 not so much been caught a few times by accidently picking up one done a bit earlier to move it and ended up with a nice index finger pad burn.
The RP 303 brass it really looks nice with the blue ring at the bottom just past the shoulder, if I have a piece of worked brass and then anneal another the same and you looked at them from the top the brass with a light from behind you the annealed one has that dull golden colour of brass and the hard worked one looks like brass thats been highly polished.

It was not cheap but has certainly saved allot of split necks in my RP 303 cases along with my wifes 308 brass its well worth it although now I see they are going for $2007/AUD which is quite a few 000 more than I paid if anyone near you has got one see if they will do a fifty odd rounds for a six pack of beer (Universal payment plan)for you so that you can see the difference tell them if you neck turn so they get the right setting lest they cook your brass.