COAL too long?

[dbshabo]

Went thru the motions to determine how far to seat my bullets so they are just touching (at least as close as I can determine)the rifling in my barrel. Loaded a few dummy rounds to the dimensions I came up with to verify that the rounds would feed from the mag and that the bolt will close on them. All looks good. The OAL of these rounds is .035" longer than the max OAL SAAMI spec for this cartridge, 6.5 Creedmoor.

Is this a cause for concern. I'm about to load up my first ever batch of ammo and want to make sure I'm not doing something stupid. I intend to start out with a light powder charge and work my way up to determine where I start to see high pressure indications. I'm doing this because I read in one of the tacked threads on this forum that you should start developing a load with the bullet touching the lands in order to determine the max powder charge that should be used. Is this a good practice?

Shabo

 

[nso123]

Re: COAL too long?

OAL can vary greatly, so if you feel like your measurements are good, then that is what you have. The only thing to remember while you are developing your load is that seating into the lands raises pressure, so watch for signs of pressure.

 

[427Cobra]

Re: COAL too long?

Being at in or away from the lands depends on the bullet, VLDs at or in the lands, SMKs love to jump along way to the lands, Amax seems to like jumping around .015 or so, Scenars at the lands, if .035 too long according to SAMMMMMMMMI spec pick a different bullet.

 

[Fuzzball]

Re: COAL too long?

Book OAL is what was used during development of the book's data, nothing more.