Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Seating depth and accuracy

What what increments do you seat bullets to test for accuracy nodes? Also are the increments the same for big and small cased rounds

For a hunting rig I start 30 thou off the lands, or mag length if less, then work out from the lands in ten thou increments. Sometimes I'll try 20 thou off, but that's the minimum breathing room I'm really comfortable with on a hunting rifle.

.003, but I load only small cases.

Working on a friend's 300 Weatherby so getting close to the lands is out of the question

Load up 3 to 5 each, what ever floats your boat, at .005" off, .040" off, .080" off and .120" off (or at least as long as your mag allows if not .120") the lands and go shoot 4 groups. Your rifle will tell you what it likes. You can fine tune from there but at least you'll have an idea of where to start. Using this method, when I start my load development with the rifle's/bullet's preferred distance and your load development will be a bit more telling. I've had bullets that showed huge .040"-.060" wide nodes this way as well as bullets that showed a very narrow window of OAL.

I start at 10 thou off or mag length I can get out of the mag