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holmes168
06-03-2018, 11:53 AM
I posted that more questions are coming. I guess I can either posted them or invite some of you to stay in the guest room for a weekend....

COL = Cartridge Overall Length- pretty easy to understand. Put the completed round on the calipers and measure. When tracking a batch of rounds- do you just grab a certain percentage of rounds, measure and then get an average?

OAL - not really sure what this or how to measure. Why is it important?

Sorry- I know I’m behind the power curve as I’ve already reloaded a couple thousand rounds and seemingly don’t know all the basics.

Maybe someone really experienced could put some reloading basics on a sticky. Maybe I’ll just read twelve pages and compile basic information and submit stickies to our outstanding mods.

Edit- or maybe I’ll just reread LL’s sticky from earlier on reloading basics.

Thanks for the education.

41magfan
06-03-2018, 12:28 PM
Those two abbreviations are used interchangeably - they both refer to the cartridges over all length.

The variations I've seen include: C.O.L., COAL, & OAL

holmes168
06-03-2018, 12:37 PM
Those two abbreviations are used interchangeably - they both refer to the cartridges over all length.

The variations I've seen include: C.O.L., COAL, & OAL

That’s what I had originally thought until rereading the Hornady reloading guide- Volume 9. It mentions finding the OAL in the paragraph under measuring COL.

Thanks!