Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Importance of Cartridge Depth, considering limitations

I have a new Weatherby Accuguard that I am loading for and am having a bit of problem with OAL choices.

My length to lands is 3.545 using 200 gr ELD-X's. However, my box will not accept anything over 3.50, putting me .045 from the lands, at a minimum.

Considering that I am not trying to push these (I only want 2725 to 2750 or so), additional powder capacity is not helpful.

And considering that .045 is the best I can do, is there any point to loading them long? FYI, 3.340 is standard length.

Thanks!

All of the Weatherbys that I have owned, both Mk V and Vanguard, have had quite a bit of freebore, even when chambered for non-Weatherby cartridges. I start out seating the bullets so that the cartridge OAL is .010-.015" shorter than the magazine. In a couple of rifles, that wasn't enough clearance to guarantee reliable feeding and the cartridges had to be a little shorter. I have always been able to find loads that will stay around an inch at 100 yards, and most have done a little better.

Bullets seated away from the lands isn't certain doom for accuracy. I have several rifles that shoot good groups all the time with bullets jumping .100" or even a little more.

Yeah, I am not happy about how much freebore there appears to be. In my Tikka, I can seat them out perfectly. Considering the size of the magazine box, there is no reason for this. But there it is.

So I wonder if I should even bother seating them out farther. The first set I have loaded to chrono are set out as far as I could fit in the box and still have it function correctly.

But if it's 'too far' already, might as well go shorter so as to use up the powder space, as I am already running a light load and I prefer to get closer to case capacity as I understand burn consistency is usually better.

Only way to know is to try

Factory ammo is loaded short with a big jump to the lands. Factory ammo is often very accurate in spite of the jump and is sometimes hard to beat with handloads loaded out to the limit of the magazine, or even further.

I would try some at 3.50" (your magazine max), some at 3.340" and some in between, maybe at .040" intervals. One of these lengths will probably be better than the others, but there is no way to know which one it is until you do the test.

Nifty is right about FACTORY ammo. It is often quite good "regardless" of freebore.

I said this in another thread. I think 'kiss lands" is over stressed because there is such a thing as SAAMI - COAL.

I have come to the point w/a new to me rifle - start with factory COAL and go from there. (For hunting rifles)

Jerry

My Tikka T3 6.5X55 has a tapered throat. Using my Stony Point OAL tool, I set the seating depth to the FIRST resistance felt. There is still freebore to the lands. Yes, it's accurate, and the bolt handle isn't hard to lift.\

Read Barsness's comments abut Weatherby throating. Follow the loading manual instructions. Weatherby rifles need the freebore to reduce peak pressure. Those long throats are cut tight enough the bullets don't wobble on their way to the rifling.

Thanks for all the advice. I already loaded my first handloads up to 3.5, so we'll see what we get. But doing a set at SAAMI length and then varying sounds like a good way to go in the future, assuming these first loads don't prove satisfactory.

Well, I went out and shot some of my loads today...unfortunately, I got to the range late, so as the sun went down, the Chrono started misreading, and finally stopped reading. So I missed velocities entirely on some loads, including the one load in the window where I wanted to be (pretty sure it will turn out to be the velocity area I was targeting.) So I'll have to retest.

As to accuracy, wish I could scan the targets in for some interpretation on where to go with my loads. I'll probably do something like that on a seperate thread.

But basically, I got to test 7 different loads before having to give up. Velocities ranged from 2500 to 2680 (the 7th load, I don't know).

Most were 2 shot, just testing for pressure and velocity. Most strings put the two shots touching. The last 3 groups were 3 shots each. 1st was .64, second was .44. The third was dreadful, 1.92, but this group was rushed as I was trying to beat the sun and I had at least 1 called flyer in that group that really opened it up. But overall, it was just sloppily shot as I was hoping to shoot 4 more loads and not have to haul the chrono back out. No luck, it was too dark and no velocity was captured on this last group and I have to go out and do 4 more loads.

Most interestingly, except for that 1 called flyer, the rifle put 15 shots into 1.18 inches (when you superimposed the targets). These from 7 different loads.

I think it's definitely going to be a shooter. I've only had 1 box through it before today....just doing the shoot and clean....and I did not get to finish it, so less than 10 shots down a clean bore.

So I'll be going back and reshooting that 7th load to capture velocity data and see if I can do better when not rushed. Every other load grouped so well that I am optimistic that it was just me, so hopefully, I've got a decent hunting rig going here and now I just need to learn to dial it in.

Then I don't think you will need to worry about monkeying with the OAL.

One of the main characteristics of a weatherby chamber, and what makes it different, is freebore. I'd be more concerned when loading a WBY if I was close to the lands. The freebore is part of the design. Probably shouldn't buy a WBY if you want to load close to the lands.