My rifle feeds best with a shorter OAL so I had to back off some powder charges to avoid overpressuring. Velocities still seemed decent when I shot over the chrono yesterday afternoon with Reloder 10x (thanks Mainer) and a 360 North Fork. The extra freebore compensating for the capacity loss????
Pressures seemed good in the 2225-2275 range with sized, trimmed, and annealed Virgin QC brass. Stepped up to a tad over 2300 and the primer was flat. Never had any extraction or bolt lift issues.
Decided to be kind to the brass and stuck at 2225 which will keep the NF above 1800 fps to 200 yards.
You're welcome, you did good. The foolishness of jamming a bunch of slow ball powder in a lightweight short-barrel carbine/ 400 Whelen, only increases recoil with no increase in velocity. As you've experienced, the 2,300 fps sweet-spot using RL-10x, is a good place to be. Recovery from recoil is quick.
You have a very good Alaskan rifle. I've made a couple long shots with a 1.5-5 on a 9.3x62 mauser.. A 500 yd shot on a bull moose, and a 400 yd shot on a winter caribou. It's a well suited scope for typical ranges you'd shoot with a 350 grain 41 caliber.
