.260 Remington C.O.A.L

[Swamp Donkey]

Laurie, as you are in the 'load zone', do you have any data yet for RL33 in .338LM ? Specifically, under a 285 gr amax.

Cheers

Pete

[Laurie]

338LM? Sorry - way too big and expensive a cartridge for me!

Actually Alliant Re33 is a Swiss Nitro-Chemie powder developed for the .338LM likely in its RUAG military loading. It's N-C's EI-N170EA powder, shortly to be available in the UK as Reload Swiss RS80. If you google RUAG 338LM, its standard loading(s) may be available somewhere. Otherwise with a bit of luck, 338LM will be covered in the N-C Reload Swiss loads data when it's released, which is supposed to be pretty soon.

[HALODIN]

I had decided to use the COAL from lapua's site at 2.795" (page 22), but I can see this is something I need to look more carefully at. Thanks for the info!

http://www.lapua.com/upload/downloads/b ... ed9eng.pdf

I load mine to 2.826" seems to work for me, but whatever suits your rifle start at 2.800" and take it from there.

[HALODIN]

Thanks for taking the time to write that out, I understand your points in terms of accuracy and safety. It would seem you've convinced me to buy an OAL gauge, which do you recommend?

In very broad terms, yes that's correct. The quoted cartridge OAL for each individual bullet should fit a chamber with a throat / leade configuration that complies with the minimum SAAMI value for that area. That assumes we're talking mass produced factory rifles. Any custom, or rebarrellled rifle may or may not be 100% SAAMI compliant.
...

[jcampbellsmith]

This is my understanding and I fully accept I could be wrong... I thought the values published in reloading manuals were `generally` accepted for most rifles, whilst of course there may be the odd exception. I was advised to test a non primed round in the chamber before reloading the rest of the brass. If the bolt either doesn't or is difficult to close then there's a problem. The variance I believe is down to the headspace of the chamber. To add to this, you can improve on accuracy by adjusting the COAL so the difference between the ogive and the lands (the jump) is optimal for your rifle/bullet etc... There are of course tolerances that mustn't be ignored. Is that correct?

Your COAL should bear some resemblance to YOUR rifle surely. My COAL may not work in your chamber. You need to measure your own COAL - various devices are available for this purpose.

I would be looking for COAL of 2.750 in one of my 260's and 2.900 in the other. Each has been chambered to a specific COAL. Regards JCS

[HALODIN]

This is the best I've achieved so far. No I'm not including the first shot and yes I should probably work as a government statistician...

Hornady curved OAL gauge en-route and then we'll see what difference it makes.