I will preface this with the fact that I'm shooting all of these rounds out of a stock Remington 700 (XCR II).
So I've been reloading some 338 RUM rounds using the recommended overall length as suggested by my reloading manuals and have not been getting the accuracy that I would hope for. I've been using 250gr Hornady match bullets but switched over to some 250gr SMK's.
I started at 3.580" (Hodgdon even recommends this for 300gr SMK's, which to me seems awfully short) as my COL and they weren't that great. I worked up to 3.600" and the groups have started to shrink.
I was wondering if anyone here has any experience reloading for this round and what COL they found to be best. I know even at 3.600" there is still a decent jump to the lands (as far as I can tell loading the 250gr SMK's to right about 3.750" (going off the top of my head here) is when they will touch). I've seen some forums where people are loading them well beyond 3.600", sometimes in the 3.7XX" range.
I've already loaded some up a little longer than 3.600, I just haven't shot them yet. Might make up a few more test rounds with increasing COL to see if that helps even more. Just wanted to see if anyone had any advice as to whats worked for them, just to give me an idea instead of lots of guess (educated of course) and check.
So I've been reloading some 338 RUM rounds using the recommended overall length as suggested by my reloading manuals and have not been getting the accuracy that I would hope for. I've been using 250gr Hornady match bullets but switched over to some 250gr SMK's.
I started at 3.580" (Hodgdon even recommends this for 300gr SMK's, which to me seems awfully short) as my COL and they weren't that great. I worked up to 3.600" and the groups have started to shrink.
I was wondering if anyone here has any experience reloading for this round and what COL they found to be best. I know even at 3.600" there is still a decent jump to the lands (as far as I can tell loading the 250gr SMK's to right about 3.750" (going off the top of my head here) is when they will touch). I've seen some forums where people are loading them well beyond 3.600", sometimes in the 3.7XX" range.
I've already loaded some up a little longer than 3.600, I just haven't shot them yet. Might make up a few more test rounds with increasing COL to see if that helps even more. Just wanted to see if anyone had any advice as to whats worked for them, just to give me an idea instead of lots of guess (educated of course) and check.