Gents,

As some of you read in my other thread, I loaded some 400gr A-Frames last week. I seated those bullets deep enough to use the cannelure to crimp into. The COAL for these rounds was roughly 3.6 inches, well below the SAAMI max of 3.75 inches.

I'm now getting ready to load up some 400gr North Fork soft points. With the grooves on these bullets, it should be easy to seat the bullets to the max of 3.75 inches. But is this necessarily the best length?

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Again this is for a CZ 550, thanks.

The ideal cartridge overall length (col) differs from rifle to rifle. You should find the col your rifle requires for a given set of components. The col for the Swift bullets will be different to the col required by the NF components.

One often hears, with factory ammo, that one rifle 'likes' the ammo while another will not shoot well with it at all. The ammo that shoots well in the second rifle is not 'liked' by the first. It is because the two types of ammo have different cols. Take the ammo that is not 'liked' by a rifle, adjust the col to that which the rifle 'likes' and any rifle will shoot passably well with any make of ammo.

Do you mean oal to the tip as it is the ogive that determines whether a particular bullet will shoot acurately in a particular barrel or not. Two different bullets loaded to the same oal may have a different base to ogive measurement and consequently one may shoot verry diferently to then other. A rifle may well have a different oal requirement for different bullets if they have a different nose shape.

Von Gruff.

I was talking to the tip. I wasn't looking for an exact dimension. I figured with the number of CZ 550 shooters here that I could get a good number to start with.