Can a bullet be seated half way up the neck?

[mattri]

In a standard shouldered cartridge, .243, .308, .30-06 etc if you are trying to reach the lands with a light bullet and in order to do so the base of the bullet is seated somewhere in the neck, not below it, will this cause any problems?

[possum1]

The only problem I see is if you don't fire the round and have to eject it beware the bullet will stay in the chamber. I've had two so far I had to eject and they do make a mess. A small hand vac clean's it up nicely though.

[ctrout]

The typically accepted minimum seating depth is one full bullet diameter. So if you are loading a .243, as long as the bullet is held by .243" of the neck, you should be fine.

[82boy]

As mentioned before many use the bullet diameter method, find that as long as you have enough bullet to in the case to hold it, you are fine. The only problem with this is if you shoot the brass with this seating depth multitudes of times, then a donut will form in the case, and you will not be able to seat the bullet deeper latter unless you use a inside neck reamer, to remove the donut.

[gotcha]

mattri, no benchrest guhru here. But, have found that the further out of the case you seat a short bullet, the more likely you are to have concentricity problems. Particularly when working with non- neck turned brass. When bullet is seated the base will tend to move toward the thinnest wall of the neck. Bullets that seat to the neck shoulder junction tend to straighten themselves the deeper they're pushed. Nothing wrong with seating long. I try to stick w/ ctrout's advice on Diameter. Also if the bullet isn't jammed into the lands but rather, " just touching" you shouldn't have problems with bullets sticking in throat on ejection. Hope this helped!

[tammons]

I have done it numerous times and never had a problem.
I would not run a loose neck tension or a jammed bullet with a small amount
of seating depth.

I did have one bullet pull out and dump powder on a loose neck tension load a couple of times.

Like above, its a real PIA to clean out.