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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Gene: I have BRed an AMU 1000 yard gun, and to get the full potential you had to work the brass. I tried the Federal Premium and it just would not shoot. I discovered that bullet shape and weight for the twist are critical, as is the bullet seating depth off of the lands. When I started preparing the brass properly, it got even better. Turns out that once I found out what the rifle liked and followed all of the steps, if shot like a house on fire. If you get the right load for a particular rifle, and make it consistently, your shooting becomes the weakest link. All of my precision rifles are better shooters than I am. TR
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TR:
Sounds like the AMU set you up with a 300 Magnum. If so -- and I am not sure that is what they gave you -- you have your hands full. Belted magnum brass is not the most consistent in the world and a fellow really must work that brass to get it to be consistent.
Something I have read from guys who make bullets and I believe in is that bullet length is more important than weight for accuracy. I used to be extremely anal about the weights of the cores I would use to swage jacketed match grade bullets. +- .1 grain was a standard I used for .30 caliber. I have slacked off on that to +- 1 grain with .30 caliber bullets and have not seen a bit of difference in accuracy. Learned that bullet length is more critical than weight. You see, I can swage out bullets of different lengths with the same weight and so I tested some of these bullets and low and behold -- the length was the difference to a point. Then you deal with balance and points of pressure issues. Fortunately for all of us, there are enough high quality bullets available in any caliber to make swaging nothing more than interesting and perhaps educational.
Bullet shape plays its role. I messed with the VLD designs and made VLDs of various shapes. Some were pretty radical in tip design. Never found them any more accurate than standard ogives and the differences in elevation were so minimal I wonder why anyone calls them 'Very Low Drag'. The bearing surface of the bullet is extremely important due to the mechanical advantage that must be obtained in the rifling. A bearing surface must be at least the bore diameter in length but it loses its advantage at two times the bore diameter in length. Normally the longer and heavier bullets have more length to play with in terms of ogive style, bearing surface, and tail, so it is easier to get one of them to shoot well than a shorter bullet -- provided you twist the rifling sufficiently for stability.
I have messed around with cartridge lengths in terms of bullets off, in, or on the rifling and like you I perfer off the rifling or just touching. Much depends on the type of shooting one will do but I don't particularly like hard seating into the rifling unless someone gave me a bunch of VLDs where hard seating is almost required for performance.
You know, I haven't had a High Power rifle design be able to compete against a rifle designed for Bench Rest and vice versa. Two different animals in terms of stock design I believe.
I wouldn't short change myself in terms of man verses rifle. I firmly believe man is far more consistently accurate than any rifle and ammo made. Could well be your marksmanship is superior to your rifle and ammo.
Enough for tonight. Can't give out all the secrets!
Gene