Exceeding OAL

[trackmagic]

Today I reloaded for the first time (308win). A buddy of mine told me I should chamber a dummy round and use my rifling to push the bullet into the casing to figure out my rifle's chamber OAL. It came out to be 2.900"

The spec in the book (Lymans) calls for a max OAL of 2.810". Since I am inexperienced I opted not to work outside the recommendations and I loaded my rounds to 2.810". Just curious. Is there any issues with loading that extra 0.090" or is it just feeding issues you are trying to avoid?

[markm]

That's not really a great way to measure your leade. If the rifling sticks to the bullet at all, it'll pull the bullet out a little when you extract the dummy.

What bullets are you loading? If you're not loading VLDs then just set your die up to load to mag length or SAAMI spec.

[Quick Draw]

For bolt guns I load longer than standard to fit my chambers to improve accuracy. For semi auto guns (read AR) I load to mag length with reliable feeding the goal.

[markm]

It really depends on the bullet. An SMK, for example, will jump a mile.. no problem. Rem 700 factory barrels typically have Gargantuan leades... but they'll shoot mag length ammo just fine.

[trackmagic]

The bullets are Sierra Matchking 175gr bullets. I'm not too worried about feeding because my mags were designed for 338LM (DTA SRS) and have a lot of room for the tip of the bullet for the 308 version.

[markm]

You can pretty much do what you want. Seating them long isn't really going to gain you accuracy. You might be able to bump up your powder charge a touch though. Work with a chrono graph and play with it a little.

[GunnutAF]

trackmagic
If you got the room in the mag and you know you have the lead that long then you can load your bullet out more. Since where talking AR10 here I assume the only draw back I see here are you still able to crimp the rounds properly- as you should in a hard recoiling semi-auto. I've found in my AR's loading out to mag length gives me the best accuracy for most bullets -not all! As Markm said some bullets actually like the long jump to the lans. Most match type bullets are long an allow you to load them long to get that magic length for the best accuracy. You have to decide do I want the quarter size group at 100 yards or can I live with 1" ?:D

[trackmagic]

Its actually not an AR10, but a bolt action rifle.

Mark, above you mentioned that you can actually be getting a bad measurement with the method I used because the bullet may "stick" when you try to remove it.

Is there a better way to do the measurement?

[markm]

Its actually not an AR10, but a bolt action rifle.

Mark, above you mentioned that you can actually be getting a bad measurement with the method I used because the bullet may "stick" when you try to remove it.

Is there a better way to do the measurement?

Hornady makes the tool. You can pick it up at Cabelas, Sinclair, Sportsmans Warehouse, etc. It uses a modified case that you buy for your caliber for like $3. The tool is probably $15 or $20.

You might be fine doing this method... depending on neck tension. I'm just saying that the bullet can move and give you an incorrect reading.

[Steel head]

Hornady makes the tool. You can pick it up at Cabelas, Sinclair, Sportsmans Warehouse, etc. It uses a modified case that you buy for your caliber for like $3. The tool is probably $15 or $20.

You might be fine doing this method... depending on neck tension. I'm just saying that the bullet can move and give you an incorrect reading.
The Hornandy too works well but here is another option.
Take a sized case(I usually use a crappy or badly dented case) and cut a slit in the neck down to the shoulder.
I holds the bullet with light tension and usually the bullet won't stick on the rifling so you get a good measurement when you pull the case back out.

[trackmagic]

What if you seated the bullet with the press, but with a lot of it sticking out. The bolt should not close. You could progressively press it in 0.015" at a time until you can close the bolt. I'm not sure that would work or solve the sticking issue, but just an idea.

[Coal Dragger]

Not to add useless information here, but I'll throw in my own procedure for consideration. As a standard procedure I will typically start my reloads loading to factory spec for overall length with a given bullet, and then load a series of test loads at different increments of powder charge weight for each powder I try. Then I head to the range to shoot all these loads and see what the barrel and bullet want for velocity. More often than not I will get good results with this method and you can see on your target where a load comes together, in fact there is usually a range of velocity/pressure the barrel and bullet will like and several increments can show good accuracy. I might fine tune from there and start playing with 1/10 gr increments on powder charge but more often than not I don't bother. Once I find a good load, I make more of them and enjoy shooting them. Chasing some mythical perfect load for a rifle is not my idea of fun, although many guys like it quite a bit.

I very rarely ever play with bullet seating depth, since I have not noticed any really meaningful gains by doing so. The only exception was playing Berger VLD's once. Those are sensitive to seating depth to the point of being silly in the last barrel I tried them in. Frankly for my use they weren't worth the extra time or money compared to the very forgiving and accurate Sierra Match King.

[markm]

I very rarely ever play with bullet seating depth, since I have not noticed any really meaningful gains by doing so. The only exception was playing Berger VLD's once.

Same here. With VLDs, it's all the difference in the world. Otherwise, it's low on my priority list.

[trackmagic]

Thanks guys...Before I got into reloading I read tons of posts and I saw a few guys talking about seating depth. I was under the impression that was something that should be done. It sounds like with my Sierras I'll be fine.

Sunday I'll get to try my first batch out. Looking forward to it!

[Coal Dragger]

Seating depth is very low priority with most modern bullets, and is something to play with after you've arrived at an otherwise good powder/primer/bullet combo. Often times it's not even worth screwing with.

For example the last load I worked up in .223 using 77gr SMK's over CFE223 I loaded to factory length using some factory ammo to set my seating die. These loads once dialed in for powder charge consistently ran well under 1 MOA for 5 shot groups averaging between .50-.75" at 100 yards. Not much to be gained messing with seating depth after that.

Same thing for my .280 Ackley loads. I've never had to screw with varied seating depth on any hunting bullets with that rifle either.

[HKGuns]

All of my .308's are loaded to 2.80".