Load em long

[longwinters]

Having a thing for Sako's, and occaisionally a Weatherby, I had to get used to the whole idea of freebore. Any of you other freebore shooters load em long or do you just go with SAAMI lengths. I cannot say that I notice any difference but . . . .

Long

 

[Bigdog2n]

The long free bore guns do seem to go contrary to the standard recommendation of seating the bullet near the rifling, but their still accurate.

You always have to make sure the bullet will go in and out of a magazine and into the chamber properly, and I always try to keep one bullet diameter inside the neck.

I suspect that RUNOUT (concentricity) is more important in a rifle with more free bore than a rifle without, but I've never seen a test or article addressing that relationship. I would also expect that turning the case neck for uniformity would ensure that the bullet would be released more uniformly for the "jump" to the rifleing.

 

[Blaine]

I agree with what has been said above. For hunting loads that need to fit the magazine, some of my bullets have to seat as much are .175 off the lands. I turn all the necks for consistency and I use a Lee Factory Crimp Die on all my loads to help assure uniform release pressure. I have found that the farther the bullet starts from the lands, the more the crimp die helps both accuracy and SD's. On my T/C Encore, where magazine length is not a concern, I often seat the bullets to "kiss" the lands regardless of SAAMI specs. I try to keep 1 bullet diameter into the neck, but that is not an absolute either. As long as there is enough to hold the bullet, I'll go with it. That is another reason to use the crimp die mentioned above. On some of my loads, I have stopped using boat tails, for just that reason....not enough bearing surface of the bullet in the neck.

Blaine

 

[longwinters]

I will be loading em long this weekend. Typically I just load to SAAMI or a bit longer and have always had excellent accuracy with the Sako's. Of course with heavier bullets you can get a bit more length. But I typically shoot the mid-weight bullets. 140 out of 280, 150 out of 308 or 06 and 130-140 out of 270. With any of these rifles I shoot MOA at 100 with several different bullets.

With so many shooter/hunters being hard core on touching the lands I find it pretty interesting.

Long

 

[JD338]

I always load my ammo to either the sweet spot off the lands or as long as the magazine allows.
I also load for accuracy first, high velocity second.

JD338