Actually Keith, just a hunter afflicted with an engineering background. Curious, and tend to try to improve performance on things... I'm a bit leary right now because I (actually my buddy) just finished with a painful episode of load development for another rifle of mine, and encountered headspace issues. The vendor of the custom cases (.375 Hawk/Scovill) were .026" short of what was needed which caused all sorts of problems. Broken case inside the sizing die, etc. That rifle was not a belted mag, so it was less forgiving. I ended up eating the brass and making my own from .35 Whelen (PITA). Not having fooled with belted mags much (except just feeding 'em factory fodder), I'm learning. You seem to be reading my mind as I come along and begin to think "just shoot the darn gun" and toying with a custom barrel. In keeping with your thoughts regarding working up a load with the Nosler brass, I guess I will need to regard the first rounds to be a pseudo-fireforming exercise and expect somewhat more consistent accuracy with subsequent re-loads... Like I was alluding, I already have one rifle to fire-form for and the notion that my factory rifle will be better the "second time around" kind of nags me... I hope that sheds some light on my equivocal position which seems to be showing through
Thanks for the subjective input, it's helpful to hear from others that "have been there".
BTW, my Nosler brass seems to be kind of short in the neck which also irks me. Like 2.480". My chamber will handle 2.535". The neck is already short on the 7 Rem Mag. Just makes it that much harder to work with the long bullets in a hunting rifle.
