It's probably a neat rifle, but it's not the best choice for someone who doesn't handload themselves. The bears should be impressed by it, since it's much like a short action 35 Whelen.
I agree, it IS a great little caliber whose only real short coming is in many bolts its not a heavy bullet friendly rifle.
YES you can easily make brass form about any of the "MAGNUM" brass. But I prefer NOT to choose one that smaller diameter as you cannot add brass and going "UP" makes it thinner. While going down and neck turning is not a problem.
Personally when I could not find brass I made it from 300 H&H as I had quite a bit of that. Then trimmed and neck reamed then loaded. Normally I an concerned with using other brass, because should someone lay hands on that rifle and its loads who was not aware bad things could happen. But being that there are only a couple short action magnums and there quite different there is not much danger.
Loading manuals will give you the data you need. I do not like to post or offer data as mistakes happen and I would very much to be the cause. But as I said its not necessary as your obviously a loader as you have been tasked with this and likely have the data you need already. The little magi is not too hard to load for, but as you mentioned your time is short. My fav bullet in mine is a 225 Sierra (Also the Nosler Accu bond is a great one) but would prefer the 250 or even 275 I can shoot out of my Whelen because bears get big.
Also as I said the little case is hurt by heavy bullets, if the action is short as your limited by the box mag dimensions for OAL bullet.
I find that the 225 is a nice improvement over the 200's and balances out vel and energy from the smaller case.
Good luck,
' CW
