deep seat amax?

[sixonetonoffun]

I'm new to rifle reloading so have been reading as much information/disinformation as I can.

Worked out a decent hunting load 308/165gr Nosler pt spitzers in RP brass. But they are too spendy to chase paper with.

So picked up some 168gr amax bullets less then half the price. So while "studying" the amax I ran across expert advice.on seating these deep instead of jumping out to just off the lands. I'm loading these in once fired WW brass so capacity is not going to be an issue. Once I have a charge worked up seating just off the lands is it likely to be worthwhile to seat a few at.the base of the shoulders and see if there's room for improvement?

[FW Conch]

From jammed into the lands to as far back as you can go, information can be gained! :))

Edit....but since you are new to reloading, concentrate on the basics first...start with book coal. Be safe. Then take a step up to a little more advanced reloading by playing with seating depth. Changing seating depth can change pressures, up and down. The safe way to do it is start at the bottom and work back up again, looking for pressure signs along the way.

Good Luck.....Good Reloading :))........Jim

[sixonetonoffun]

Thanks Jim. I'm still playing with these. Wish I had enough RP brass for these too. The ww stuff and different bullets are more of a challenge then I had anticipated! I got to .33 with the hunting bullets so easily. These I'm struggling to get under .5 but I was interupted and had to rush the last round of testing.

[sixonetonoffun]

Re: Starting at book coal.

The book.coal is what led me to the seating.depth question. I found book coal was too long for me. I kissed the lands at 2.796 couldn't even begin to close the bolt. I did work up a load for targets there. Will have to take a more accurate measurement of the chambers. But haven't had a chance yet. Might pick up some spitzers for cheap target practice. Last time I had the kids out to shoot we setup the targets at 220 yds we aren't likely to get past 300-350 and seems that is where the amax would be stablizing. Making the spitzers as good or better for our needs.

I did learn a lot from the switching things and it gave me a couple of baselines.to work with when going from rp to ww brass. Takes a full grain of powder to get to the same sweet spots from rp-ww. I wouldn't have anticipated that much would have presumed more like .1

For what its.worth I found imr4064 41.6-41.8 to be sweet in the 168 amax with Winchester brass lit with cci br2 primers.

Pretty well known pet load for 4064 pushing 165-168gr bullets. The same node in rp brass came in the 40.6-40.8 range. For.targets/accuracy for hunting I would prefer the higher node at 43.8 in rp brass and 44.8 in Winchester just to maintain higher velocities with the pt, af or tsx class bullets.

[yorketransport]

In my experience the A-max shoots well at almost any length. They are far more forgiving than the other VLD bullets are if you try to seat them at mag length. I say load some up and give it a try.

Andrew

[sixonetonoffun]

Oh they will get shot! Just a damp miserable day today mosquito boogs liable to carry a man off for a blood feast!

I shot 40 myself working loads up. Leaving 40 ready to fire and 20 waiting for me to trim and chamfer cases for!