HEADSPACE

[Dippingvat]

I have a 7-08 Encore rifle barrel that I have been test loading recently. The bullet and powder I am using is shooting about 1.5 at 100 yards. The throats of all my encores seem to be long, so I started at 2.80 and worked up slowly with bullet seating a little longer each session.  I finally got to 2.90 which allows the bullet to just touch when you shut the barrel.
This would be too long under normal reloading guidelines, but the barrel now shoots .75 groups.  The barrel still shuts fairly easy but you can feel the bullet touch when you close.  Is this Ok or should I back off?  Advice please..........  :shock:

[JBMauser]

Most agree that you should back off just a tad.  That allows the bullet to overcome neck tension and move at a lower pressure and a more reproduceable pressure.  If the bullet touches the rifling it acts as a further resistance to the bullet moving and thus raises pressure at no gain to accuracy and performance.  JB

[John Traveler1]

Another good reason for seating your bullets off the lands is that "long seated" bullets can jam and stick in the chamber.  If your extractor can't overcome this, you have a non-functioning gun in the field.

[Reed1911]

If it is not hard to close, and you can just barely feel it as it touches, then you should not have a jamming problem. You might test it to make sure, run through several bullets closing the action and opening it pretty hard.

I'd back off .001 to .003 and see if the accuracy remains the same, if so keep it there, if not then go back to touching the lands and use that load. BTW what load are you using? Provided it is not at the very top end you should not have any problems with pressure.