Ta Daaaaa!
Hey Vapo! I've read tresmon's and woods' method for finding the MCOAL with a particular bullet, and it's pretty much what I do as well. Tresmon's instructional threads are great. They are also "stickys" at snipershide.com.
My variation is that I don't seat the bullet into a dummy case or perform the measurement with the barrel vertical.
I use my Harris bipod or put the barrel in my bench vise so that the rifle is horizontal, set the rod stops as described, then simply drop a bullet into the chamber and let it "find" the rifling. I then insert a ball point pen backwards into the chamber till it meets the bullet base and hold it in with my left hand. I push against it pretty hard. At the same time, I run the cleaning rod with the bolt stops on it slowly down into the barrel till the blunt jag touches the bullet tip, set the innermost rod stop, then measure.
It's then easy to loosen the stops and push the bullet out of the lands and start the process again for a couple of more "confirmation" measurements.
I then use that bullet seated in the first case I actually load seated to the OAL I measured. When that is done, I take a measurement off of the ogive of that specific cartridge and record it.
It has worked well for me!
