Max COAL in relation to magazine.

[little_scrapper]

I measured a handful of M118LR rounds head to meplat. Pretty much all come in at 2.820" give or take about .001". Then I tried to measure the gap from the meplat to the inside of my LaRue magazine. looks like I have about a .045" gap.

Generally speaking how much gap should I leave if I were to load to max COAL for that mag?

EDIT: of coarse the search starts working now. Wasn't a second ago. I am also looking on my own.

 

[RescueRandyMD]

Complete personal preference. I give at least 10 thou as you will have cartridge and feeding variations. I have never had FTF when loading my "max CBTO" rounds during load development in the mags when I denote the max CBTO to give about 10 thou of a gap.

 

[Jammer Six]

Interesting.

That's a small gap. The one time I thought about this, I settled on twenty-five thousandths.

 

[RescueRandyMD]

Interesting.

That's a small gap. The one time I thought about this, I settled on twenty-five thousandths.

Oh it is quite small. I never make a load that long but it's worked when doing load workup. I have my load at 30 thou shorter and I've had zero issues.

 

[little_scrapper]

I am waiting for my OAL gage, modified 308 cartridge and headspace/bullet comparator gages. I assume my max mag length will be shorter than my max OAL so I am making the assumption that the mag will be my limiting factor for now.

Assuming that my assumption is correct. This is where I intend to start. Max mag length and start working backwards and/or loads bullets.