[tseaburg]

I see a lot of postings referring to seating the bullets so many thousandths off the lands. My question is what rifles are you guys talking about? Are you guys single loading them? I have removable magazines in all my rifles. I can't get close to the lands or the cartridges will not fit in the magazine. The best I can do is load to magazine length and let the bullet jump to the throat. Any clarification out there?
My magazines are BAR, Tikka, Sako, Rem 700 Mtn, and AR-223.

 

[big dan]

don't worry about it as it just doesn't make that much of a difference... load for the magazine and reliable functioning and go with that. i've got rifles that i cant get within .180" of the rifling due to magazine length (280 rem in a 98 mauser) and i'll put that rifle up against any hunting rifle out there when it comes to itty bitty groups...

 

[kdub]

Yep, unless you're hunting with single shots or shooting benchrest competition, just load for the best functioning out of your magazine on hunting rifles and call it good.

I've got a lot of customized ex-military rifles that have very long throats for the old heavy-for-caliber cartridges and now shoot the lighter weight bullets. The "jump" from case to leads is quite long, but tweaking loads compensate for this and accuracy is pretty good.

 

[MontyF]

There is a member here that claims tweeking seating depth can still tune up a load for better accuracy even if the bullet isn't close to the lands. I have some rifles that I can't get bullets close to the lands either. Those I set at the longest length I can still get reliable function. Guess I should play more with them, might be some room for improvement. Getting close the lands don't work on every rifle, by the way.

 

[BKeith]

Bullet jump is just one of the numbers of things you go through working up the absolute most accurate load for you rifle. It seems the smaller the bullet, the more affect it has. However, there are many other things that also affect accuracy and it kinda takes a package deal to really be able to tell the dfference. You start trying to make a tack driver and reloading gets complicated, everything has to be a lot more precise and it's a heckava lot more expensive.

If you are not were versed in reloading, especially loading for accuracy, don't mess with seating depths, seat the bullet to the recommend Max OAL and be happy. You can damage or even blow a gun up in you're face if you stick a hot load against the lands that was already near max load seated .050 off the lands.

I don't know what you're shooting in your Tikka's but my 243 and 22-250 will bury the bullets in tha lands and still have bunches of room in the magazines so don't go running those out.

 

[300rum]

i have very limited experience in reloading. but the first load i developed was for my 300 ultra rem 700. i started with the 168 gr. barnes ttsx at book aol ( 3.600")
getting 1.5" groups.
then i tried mag lenght 3.650" and got .5" easily. even at this lenght i was still far from the throat ( over .100") but it did make a huge difference.
on the other hand when i tried the 200 accubond, they prefered 3.600 over 3.650"
so it would seem that oal makes a difference even if your far from the throat.

 

[varminter]

yea...Im .020 off the lands and can only put 2 at a time in my ruger mag. doesnt bother me for squirrels but I wouldnt have my deer rifle set up like that.

 

[tseaburg]

Thanks Guys!