Hello all I'm very new to reloading , and for that matter owning somthing that can be reloaded....I have a TC .308 encore (s.s.) My father and I have been checking out verios bullets loaded in winchester brass along with diffrent powders... and found that some were better than others ...but nothing was grooping very well at all then we pulled out some stuff left at one of my uncles apartments, checked it for all the data we could get by tearing them apart... I happend to shoot like a 1" group at 100yards from a bag with a 168 seira bthp ...but didnt know powder complete data like the name or any thing .. then found out We cant use them for hunting .. so I bought barnse 168 TSX wich I think will do well... but getting to my question your coal on them what should it be heres what I did... preped the casses primed them and pressed a bulet in one case covered it in marker and chambered it to see the markings of the lands... kept seating the bulet deeper a little at a time till it left a mark on the marker but not down to the copper... then measured its coal then subtracted .05 and made that my coal ..It is longer than any thing in the book by.055 how does this sound? mine is 2.915 and I made them 2.865 the book showes 2.81... is that for feeding purposes, will it help accuricy? ect

thanks in advance for the help

Slow down, and take a deep breath. Your question is very hard to read.

The OAL (over all length) shown in the manuals is such that the cartridge will feed in all rifles factory chambered for the cartridge. You are also correct that exceeding the OAL spec is normal in single shot weapons (as long as your not jamming the lands). 1/10 bullet diameter (.030) off the lands seems to be a sweet spot for most shooters.

I wont make much comment on the Matchking for hunting (there's a 20 page thread somewhere on this board that covers it in detail) other than to say "some people have had good results hunting with them". I personaly won't use a Barnes bullet, or Speer for that matter, prefering Noslers.

Your gun will tell you which bullet (weight and brand) it prefers, listen to it. Pick up a couple of bullet manfactures manuals (Nosler and Sierra come to mind), and study them. Nosler has 308Win PISTOL data BTW, so there recogmened powder would be a good place to start experamenting.

Thanks, sorry I wrote so sloppy and fast, I'm one of those people that when I have an idea to write down I never seem to get to it fast enough...Well as for your recomondations on nosler we tried them and boy what a mess we both were grouping in groups of a foot no joke! and Dads was worse than mine. But thats why I wanted to ask about the oal because I knoticed that Nosler recommended 2.810 oal but had I read the page of testimonials it said guns may group better at longer oal. But it never specified. As for the sierras I would have bought there hunting loads because they were recomended to me but they were out As for using the match king , you have to realise Im a newbe at reloading so when the book says don't use for hunting and the guy at both gun stores says the same thing ...I'm just following the advice givin to me previously...BUT WOULD LOVE TO READ THAT THREAD ! They shot the best out of my gun sofar and would love to take a deer down with it. Now the reason I went with the Barnes bullet is because they were loaded similar in the book they were BTHP acceptible for hunting. That was the only logic behind the choice. But it was a shame that we had such bad groups because we liked the fact that the nosler partitions were not all baged up so measuring oal was mor accurite, we did use varget powder with them and we also used federal 210M primers. maybe they had somthing to do with the groups?

I also have anouther question regarding brass. A friend of mine shoots at those militay matches and was using surpluse ammo using LC brass I know lc lis lake city and the number on them is probably the year I also know that the cross in the circle is NATO...But is this good to use as far as quality? Boy If you realy want to laugh about a lesson learned , I was de priming the brass when I pused on the handal and it was stuck! I mean stuck... so I put som UMF behind it and ....Wala I bent the little primer poker outer! I got a new die and started over and same thing only I took out the cartrige and looked inside to see two holes ..It was berdan primed! So I sat there with my mothers friends as we sorted with flashlights for about 2 hours to seperate it all.

If those are RCBS dies, they will replace them for FREE (great customer service). Decapping pins do get bent, and cases do get stuck, welcome to the club.
LC is Lake City and the # is year of production. Military brass is thicker (has less internal case volume) than commericial brass and the powder charge needs to be reduced 1-2 grains to produce the same pressure/velocity. Before you re-prime them, take a minute to remove the crimp from the primer pocket.
If you like the proformance of the MK, consider using the GameKing by Sierra, same basic bullet.
Each gun is a law unto it self, as far as what combination of components it likes.

Little test for you to run. Take a bullet (one of the ones you've had no luck with that you have a couple dozen extra of) and load up groups of 3 starting 1gr under book starting load, and working up in increments of .5gr to 1gr under max (assuming your working with the LC brass). Seat to 2.810. Shoot each group of 3 at a clean target, using your best bench/bag hold for each shot. You should see the groups vary in size with the different powder charges. Write down the powder charge that gives the smallest group.
Repeat the entire thing, but change bullet brand. Before long you will have a idea of which bullet your gun prefers. Next step is to change to a different (but recogmended) powder, and repeat the above test using only the bullet selected as the best in your gun. Repeat with different powders as you see fit.
Once you have the bullet and powder type/charge your gun prefers, than start playing with the seating depth of the bullet, increasing it in small increments as the final "tuning" step of load development.
Note: What the gun cares about is Ogive (the .300 diameter) to land distance, not the OAL (OAL does count for magizine function however). Good dies use a Ogive contact seater, which allows the OAL to vary, so don't get to exited over some variance in the OAL dimention (+/- .010 is fairly normal).

ok tail gunner I see what needs to be done... so even though the nosler bolistic tip 150 didnt work so well if I cange the charge in small incroments I could see a change? I was goung for the hp's because sofar they seem to fly the best nomater how they have been loaded...but it could be just luck. Oh the reason I didnt get the game king is they are so popular at the shop we go to they were gone and wouldnt have any for a mounth...I'm thinking of buying them on line because of it... the barnses at the time of purchace were the closest thing to the ones I shot and had much much better results with... but I guess I may have had better results with others too if the charge was right for the guns sweet spot THANKS FOR ALL THE INFO!!!!!

I have only one question for you:

"Why can you not use the Sierra 168 HPBT for hunting?"