I'm new at this and have a question. I'm trying to adjust my bullet seat depth by spacing my bullet just short of the riflings. One of the good 'ol boys told me to set a bullet losely in the case, and leave it sticking out quite a bit. Then smoke the bullet in a candle flame and carefully try to load it. You know you're there when the riflings just mark the smoke on the bullet and the action still closes. Well I tried it and never got a mark in the smoke on the bullet.

It was suggested to me that Remington in their great promotional wisdom may have put in a lot of extra freebore in order to keep pressures low while still boasting a large case capacity. Kind of like Weatherby on some of their rifles.

Can anyone speak to this claim, or give me a hint as to what I'm doing wrong. Do I even need my bullet spaced out that far to increase accuracy?

Thanks
Jesse

I have a 300RUM in a remington. It does have some free bore but I can get the bullets to touch the rifling with out much problem in mine but fat lot of good it does me because then they won't fit in the Mag at all. So I just shorten em down to 3.66" I believe, so that they fit in the mag and feed nicely. Can't remember the length though my die is set and I just use one bullet for it now. Accuracy in my rifle is no worse than when they are seated to touch the lands.

Mark

If you want to seat the bullet to touch the lands, run a once fired case into the neck sizer die only 1/8" just enough to hold the bullet. Seat the bullet in the case so only 1/8" is in the case. Now chamber the round very slowly then slowly open bolt and remove the round. The bullet will be pushed back in the case by the lands and you have bolt face to lands cartridge length with the bullet your using. If your rifle chamber is free bored you may not be able to reach the lands using this method.

There are far more rifles that shoot well with the bullet seated off the lands than those that will. Don't worry about touching the lands in a free bore chambered rifle. Hunting rifle chambers are cut to handle any and all factory ammo for the cartridge they are chambered. The free bore hunting rifle chamber is the brain child of Roy Weatherby to boost velocity in a given cartidge of his design. Free bore chambered rifles tend to shoot larger groups than the standard cut chamber. The free bore chamber will produce higher velocities but in reality in my view holds no advantage over the standard cut chambering. A good comparison would be the 300 Weatherby and the 300 Winchester magnum round. Both cases are well known and used on big game. Accuracy edge goes to the 300 Win Mag standard cut chamber. No animal ever taken by any hunting rifle has asked how fast the bullet was traveling when it struck them.