cant hit my lands?NEWB help

[repetereed]

Hey everyone I have a savage 7mm stw, I am trying to set my bullet depth and I can barely touch the lands with the bullet barely resting in the neck, just apast the cannulure.

Should I just cut my losses and try setting the bullet depth .284 deep not counting the cannulure?

I could set o.a.l to my magazine, but I've had issues with bullets not feeding out of the magazine so I think I don't mind being a single shot bolt action.

Im using 140 gr nosler ballistic tips

 

[joed]

I've never had much luck with seating to the lands. I try to get as close as I can but that's it. Depending on the bullet weight you're using it may not be feasible to hit the lands, especially with the lighter bullets.

The best advice I can give you is experiment and see how it shoots.

 

[janobles14]

im not a big fan of seating on the lands. can cause a startup pressure spike. each weapon is different of course but ive always had good luck backing off .003 from the lands.

but if you want to touch them then you can always use an empty case and lightly seat a bullet too far out. then close the bolt and seat the bullet. remove and measure and you should be touching them.

 

[ranger335v]

Seating to the lands is a Bench Rest technique and not all of them shoot best that way. Few factory sporters shoot best at the lands, most seem to like being .030" to as much as 4 times that far off.

 

[repetereed]

I agree I don't want to seat into the lands, but just trying to find where to start and backoff from. My over all length by the time I got to my lands was 3.85", well my magazine is 3.6" so Im kind of thinking Im going to have to load to 3.6" if I dont want a single shot. If I did want a single shot what is the minimum amount of bullet I need to have seated in the neck since I have such a long distance to work with?

 

[Captcurt]

It is possible that you are better off with plenty of freebore with the STW. At least your pressure won't spike so quickly if you are shooting max loads. Look at the Weatherby Mags. They have a pretty good jump to get to the lands. Load em and shoot em.

 

[repetereed]

Thats kink of what im thinking Captcurt, Im going to go ahead not worry about lenght for now and just go max magazine size. Now I need to find a powder, any recommendations? I was thinking H4831,IMR 4350, OR IMR 7828

 

[jbkebert]

If you don't mind me asking what model of Savage comes in 7stw. Or is your rifle a custom? Anyway I have a Rem 700Sendero in the same chambering and love the gun. I use Retumbo for my powder along with 139 gr Hornady Interbonds.

 

[repetereed]

I believe its a 110,but I could be wrong, I'm at work right now so ill check when I get home. Factory built pretty rare hard to find on gunbroker. Retumbo huh, did try other powders before going with retumbo?

 

[Captcurt]

Remember that the bigger the case and more overbored the caliber, the slower the powder. Retumbo was made for the monster cases. AA8700 and IMR 7828 work good, too.

I have not loaded the STW but I worked up loads for the 300 RUM. It really liked lots of Retumbo.

 

[ArtP]

Perhaps you're already decided how deep to seat your bullets. The rule I've read and followed when you can't reach the lands, is to use no less than one caliber length of neck/bullet contact.

 

[Prion]

no less than one caliber length of neck/bullet contact.

I've had great results loading .308 with a small fraction of .30 of bullet case neck contact in order to get .020 off the lands for SMK's.

 

[ArtP]

I've had great results loading .308 with a small fraction of .30 of bullet case neck contact in order to get .020 off the lands for SMK's.

Perhaps that's true. I was trying to be practical. Though I've never done it, using a tiny amount of neck contact may lead to the bullets easily dislodging if they're dropped or knocked around.

 

[repetereed]

Hey thanks ArtP thats what I heard too, but wanted to confirm. I did discover and was prooved wrong by my buddy, Don't measure case length with resized brass. My measurements were wrong compared to fresh fired. I ended up being 3.75 instead of 3.85. Thanks for the helpful info guys.