Would it be safe

coldmaker

coldmaker

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I have started developping a load for my wife's 260 rem last year.
I only tried a COL of 2.780" (.025 from the land) and different charge of H4350.
The best result were obtained with 46.4 gr. It's a max load in the books but showed no sign of pressure in the rifle.
So i loaded a bunch of these for huunting season.
Now i would like to try different COL to see if i could get better result.
Can i just use the ones i have already loaded and just seat the bullet deeper.
I was thinking of trying 2.760" and 2.740"
From my readings it would probably be safe, as pressure will likely be lower getting farther from the land. A least up to a certain point where the bullet will take to much powder space.
What do you think?
 
I am not familiar with the 260, so this could be wrong. But sometimes when you seat deeper pressures can increase if the powder charge is near or at max case capacity. So even though you may have bullet jump, if your load is at max already, it may become over max.

Just some food for thought.
 
The increase in jump to the lands will generally result in slightly less pressure, until you are way off of the lands. However, in your case, unless you are using a monometal bullet, I would try seating closer to the lands.
 
thank's guys
i reviewed old targets i kept to try and remember why i used 46.4 gr of h4350 in the first place.
looks like i used it because it was the best group in the original test i made. but i noticed that 45,5 gr on this old target was probably my ocw load
but i probably didn't know about ocw at the time or did'nt know how to interpret the result properly.
so i decided to load to 45.5 gr for my col test.
it looks like i may have a sweet spot ar 45.5 gr h4350 and 2.760'' col
260 rem. model 7
120 gr ballistic tip
cci br2 primer
the center group is the old load i used for reference
 
I wouldn't bother trying to improve on that load given it's a hunting rifle, but for only .02 difference in COAL there is a pretty big change in group size. Might be a good idea to fire a few more groups to verify that it's consistent. What rifle is that? Oh I see it now - Remington Model 7.
 
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Your group at 45.5 grains, at 2.760, I just can't see it being any sweeter. I would stay with that load, no reason to play with that round at all.
 
Five shot groups using a Model 7 stikes me as being outside of hunting accuracy requirements.
Normally the length of the magazine well is a determining factor followed by something less than seated to the lands.
Ballistic tips have a consistency that will allow seating closer to the lands but Barnes don't.
My 260 was built from a Model 7 action and the mag would allow 2.81 OAL. Seating to the lands is less than that but it varies from various manufacturers.
 
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