On my dad's side, my great, great grandfather, my great grandfather and his brother fought in the NC 50th infantry regiment. My great great grandad joined up late in the war in his late 40s and served as a private under his son. Both ended up POWs in camp in Maryland. All survived.
My mothers family during that era is not as well documented.
Also important is make sure , like you said to use the better OSB.. If every build another house I will glue and screw the OSB down.. I only glued and nailed down the OSB in my latest house and it squeeks a little . Much of the reason though is cause I have 3/4" maple, and maple moves a lot. I also have stapled up hydronic pex under it to make matters worse.. I still love my hydronic floor heat, straight from the wood boiler. The temp of the water gets very hot though and that will make the wood move more. Screw the OSB down good and glue it too.
Just curious, as the SST (like the Nosler Ballistic Tips) had been "adjusted" over the years. In my experience more recent SSTs penetrate like Spire Point Interlocks. Can provide some statistics from a Texas hunt--partly a doe cull.
It's been about 10 years since I last used a .277", 150gr Hornady SST, and these were on large northern Missouri whitetails (300+ pounds), and were in my .270 Win handloads. Broadside shots were fine, but with quartering shots when bone other than ribs were encountered, they squashed like bugs on a windshield and didn't penetrate very much. Never lost a deer because of them, but had a few incidents where follow-up shots and/or tracking was required.
When the .308", 150gr SST's came out, they were horrible. The first three deer I shot with them, all broadside shots, the SST's failed to penetrate the ribcage. I got lucky and managed to track them down and anchor all three with follow-up shots. I shot up the rest of that box for target practice. Haven't bought any more of them.
I tried some of the .338", 200gr SST's in my .338 RCM on big Missouri deer and found that those are plenty heavily built. In fact, on broadside shots they didn't expand as much as I like, but the deer were DRT in 35 yds or less. I anchored a big buck that our neighbor had wounded (he shot it in the butt with a .243). I got a fleeting, quartering away shot at it as it crossed the end of one of my shooting lanes in a creek bottom, headed into a multi-flora rose and briar hell. I caught it just behind the last rib on left side. Bullet angled forward, shattering off-side front shoulder and exiting. Deer plowed its nose into the ground, DRT. I wouldn't hesitate to use that bullet and load on elk or bear.
Reading the pronghorn chapter in my recently purchased copy of Mule Deer's "Hunting the Great Plains." He mentions an antelope encounter near Circle, MT. Growing up 14 miles from there, I found it very interesting. The book, an early one of Mule Deer's, is a very good read!
Is it a tight neck? I had some issues with a 7mm arm gunwerks chambered for me years back. I bought a new lot of brass they had just had Hornady make for them and the necks were too thick for their reamer.
I picked up on the problem right away noting necks didn't expand at all when fired and rounds were a but tough to chamber even with new brass.
I even sent the rifle back to them and Mike said it was fine and that I didn't know what I was talking about. Aaron was cool about it and said he'd personally look into it. Several months later they announced there was an issue with their brass necks being too thick. It was fine if I turned necks but I didn't want to do that for a hunting rifle so I sold it to someone who did at a big loss.
I had two 798 actions and they appeared as nice as any FN action I had ever seen - heads above the Interarms-Charles Daly-Zastava actions IMHO. Excellent finish, no rounded corners, wavy buffing, etc.
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