Barnes TSX Seating Depth

[PoFF]

For years I've been loading my hunting ammo with the regular 'leaded' stuff, but a coworker and I switched to Barnes TSX last year, I had good results accuracy-wise, while his completly sucked. For the record, I'm loading 150grs .308 TSX, he is loading 130 grains 270 TSX.

Now while loaded the leaded bullets, I always seated 10 thou off the lands of my rifle, but on the Barnes promotional DVD, they suggested that with TSX bullets, it was recommended to seat 70 thou off the lands (!) for accuracy (1/2 inches at 100 with their test on the DVD). I completly ignored that and I'm still seating the way I used to do, and I retained the same great accuracy I used to have with the leaded stuff once I found the magic powder load. My rifle is a "heavily NationalMatchized Rink 14S" (Basically, only the reciever is still original.)

On the other hand my coworker did take the advice of seating 70 thou, and he never managed to get even remotely close to under 1.75" at 100 regardless of the powder type & load (and we've tried 3 different propellants with all kind of loads, wasted 100 TSX on paper ), while he used to shoot 3/4" at 100. His rifle is a Remington 700 in 270Win

So what's the deal with that recommendation from Barnes?

 

[Spitzer]

I thought the recommendation from Barnes was .050"- .030" off the lands? If he's at 0.070" out, seat out further by .010" at a time a check accuracy.

 

[A-zone]

IIRC, they recommend 20 to 50 thou off the lands.

I burned through a quite a few TSX 140's for one of my 7x57's before I found the "sweet spot". Now it'll shoot about 1/2 MOA out to 300m. The best seating depth ended up being 15-20 thou off the lands in that particular rifle.

 

[308BAR]

Try cleanning the bore with a very aggressive copper remover first.
The Barnes like a squeeky clean barrel. Sweets, Wipeout, or CR10 would work well to remove copper.

 

[p-17]

I've tried .030 off the lands so far and it has worked fantastically well (less than 1/2 m.o.a.)

I agree with those who say play with the seating depth.

On the other hand, not all bullets work well in all rifles. Maybe 2 inches is all your buddy's rifle will ever get with TSXs. Just keep trying. If it doesn't work after a while, switch to another bullet.

 

[martinbns]

My best oad for my 300 win mag and 168's is about .015 off the lands, telll him to plau with OAL also clean his barrel of all copper fouling and they try it.