Off the Lands

[Chuck White]

I hear a lot about being so many 1000ths off the lands.

I want to play with this a little and I'm just wondering where most of you seat your bullets!

I have a ProHunter rifle in 280 Rem.  I am using 140 grain Remington Core Lokt bullets.
When I put a bullet in a fired case, chamber it and close the action, I get an overall length of 3.288 inches!

I'm just wondering where most people get their best accuracy.
I've heard 10/1000"  off the lands gives good accuracy.

Anyone got any good suggestions?

Thanks for your inputs.

[alsaqr]

Depending on which individual rifle it is, i seat the bullet 10 to 40 thousands of an inch off the lands.   

[Catfish]

   Every gun is different, but I have noticed some things over the years.  Lite for the cal. bullets usually can be loaded farther from the lands than heavy for the cal. bullets and still be accurate. I have jammed heavy bullets into the lands, to the point the bolt is hard to close, and still gotten excellant accuracy with heavy bullets. When set back off the land .020 or more lite bullets seem to be most accurate with fast loads and heavy bullets seem to be most accurate with slower loads.
   Peraonally I like to keep my bullets .010 to 015 off the land when I first start working up a load. Some times I get closer and some times I move them back for the filan load, but most of the time I`m pretty close to the best accuracy to start with. For guns that load from a magizine I usually load the ammo as long as I can without it causeing feeding problems.

[HEAD0001]

I have no scientific proof-or for that matter even a good reason.  But it has been my personal experience that in bolt actions, touching the lands is a very accurate load.  I do not consider the magazine length because I shoot all my bolt action rifles with a follower, and single shot only.  However, again, for me, in all my Encore's .015-.025 off the lands has given me my best accuracy.  IMO it has something to do with the head spacing.  But again I have no way to prove it.  It just turns out that way for me.  Tom.

[Davemuzz]

I don't like to get closer than 20 thousands. It's probably just a personal thing. Just remember that if your jamin the bullet against the lands, your initial pressure is going to spike because the bullet is going to need more energy to get is going. It won't have that "initial freebore run" down the barrel before it hits the lands. So, that being said, you may want to back down the powder charge during your initial loads and check for pressure issues.

MHO (And that of the Hornady reloading manual)

Dave.

[Chuck White]

Dave said: "Just remember that if your jamin the bullet against the lands, your initial pressure is going to spike"

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This is the part that I was leary about! 

Think I'll load up some set at 3.278 and some at 3.268 with my starting loads.

Thanks for your inputs.