Seating the boolits close to the lands

[PuppetZ]

Hi, I'm looking for and educated guess here. I'm loading some Lee 309-180-R in my reminton 700 in 30-06. I wanna try experimenting with the round OAL and seat the boolits closer to the rifling so it have less free bore before engaging. I measured it and setup like that, half of the forward lube groove is out of the neck. Do you believe it might pose a problem?

Thanks.

[geargnasher]

Nope. My advice is to seat them as far out as possible so the boolit contacts the lands or throat firmly when you cam the bolt closed. Different rules for cast than with copper-jacketed bullets, there is no real pressure increase when "seating to engrave" with cast, and much to be gained with accuracy and reduction in boolit skid. Just don't seat them so they jam so hard in the rifling that the case de-boolits if you extract a loaded round, and take throat fouling into consideration too. What fits just right in a clean gun might stick the boolit in a fouled gun upon extraction and cause problems, as in unloading your rifle back at hunting camp at the end of the day or to put it in the truck.

There are no WAG's here, you have to figure out OAL with your gun and your particular boolits.

The only hickies in seating to engrave depend on the individual boolit mould and the individual chamber, and how far you have to seat the boolit out of the case to touch something. Magazine length and having exposed, lubed grooves can be problematic, or if you need to crimp for some reason and none of the grooves line up with the case mouth, as sometimes happens in leverguns. Skip the lube in any of he exposed lube grooves, just put lube in the ones that will be fully inside the case neck unless you only shoot from a bench, in which case exposed, lubed grooves are a non-issue and you can single-load if your rounds are too long for the magazine.

Gear

[ColColt]

With jacketed boolits we always seated the bullet till it made contact with the rifling and then backed off .015". It worked well for accuracy with several rifles I had at the time.

[williamwaco]

All my .30 cal loads leave the first lube groove uncovered.

I probably would not do that for hunting loads but my loads oare out of the plastic box only 15 seconds before entering the chamber.



.

[1Shirt]

Gear's answer hits it on the head, follow his advice and you won't go wrong. I have a tendancy to lube all of the grooves even if it is a Lovern style blt. They just look good. However, as suggested, this is for bench shooting, and not for hunting. For hunting and where you may be manhandling the ctg, don't lube grooves that are exposed above the neck.
1Shirt!:coffee: