A 180 gr bullet is an excellent all-round hunting bullet. Does not blow up a lot of meat the way a 150 gr bullet at close range can do.
Buy a set of dies with a Full Length die. I like Lee.
Have you collected a bunch of fired brass? If so, sort it as commercial and military.
Take about 20 pieces of fired brass and gently try to insert them into the chamber. Some will not chamber, because they were fired in other rifles.
Note a couple of pieces that were the worst. They stuck out the most.
Install the full length sizing die, screw it down until it touches the shell holder, then back it out 5 revs. Now it will barely size a case.
Lube up the bad cases. Partially size one and see if it will chamber by finger pressure. If not, give the die a full turn and repeat. Keep doing this until a bad case will chamber. When it chambers, set the lock ring to that setting.
That is the die setting that will size a case so it will chamber in your rifle. It probably is leaving the shell shoulder long enough to engage the chamber, which is how you reduced case stretching.
The peep sight on your rifle is very robust, very accurate and excellent for hunting, since it does not hide the bottom half of the deer the way an open sight does.
When you start loading, load 5 each Starting with the START load and in 1 gr increments up to the book MAX load.
Shoot these for group size testing. Important you let the barrel cool between 5 shot strings. Use the cooling time to tweak the front sight for a better wind zero.
Take the group that shot the best as your new universal hunting load and enjoy.
If you can't get a group better than 4" at 100 yards, take a look at the clearance of the wood around the barrel. It should be clear (but it might be touching near the end, which is good.
If the groups are bad, and the barrel is clear, try a piece or two of ammo box cardboard under the barrel near the forend tip, to reduce barrel whip. If it helps, glue the cardboard into place and shellac it for water proofing.
