Seating Depth Question

[SpiritNugent]

I got me a new rifle to tinker with. A model 700 BDL in 222.

I usually start my seating with my 22 calibers .020" off. I use the Stony Point/Hornady OAL guage. I have found it to be a great tool.

Anyways, I want to use Nosler 50 grain BTips. They are too long of an O-Give and they barely seat in the neck when seating to touch the lands. There wouldn't be comfortable neck tension for .020" off.

So my question is to you guys, where should I start my seating? I was thinking of seating them to fit into the magazine. I have great luck seating furthur out with my .22 calibers, but this one is going to be different I suppose. ;D

If I seat them to fit into the magazine, should I just play with powder charges until I get good accuracy? Or do you guys think I should go a different route?

I have 4 powders I plan on testing, and would like to use the 50 grain BTip if it works since I have a large amount of them. Seating to fit into the magazine might not be such a bad idea for this rifle as it will be used for hunting varmints and other critters, but I also want good accuracy.

Just looking for some opinions from some guys who may have been down this road a time or two.

I have a model 700 BDL in .223 that liked to be seating in very deep like this, compared to being seated out furthur closer to the lands.

Any tricks on finding good accuracy when seated in really far?

I tried seating them to fit into the magazine, it's very close to manual/recommended OAL.

I will be using a Redding competition seating die once I get rolling with this rig. Lapua brass as well.

Thanks guys!

 

[KMart]

I recently did some loading for a 222 in a Sako L46 with a 16 twist barrel. Ran into a similar problem. So I loaded to fit the magazine first then adjusted the seating depth. It ended up with a .070 jump to the lands. The 3 shot group size was .321.
The load was 23.0 gr of Benchmark with a 52 gr Speer HP flat base. 23.0 gr of Benchmark is the max listed on the Hodgdon website.
Benchmark will also work well in your 223 with 55 and 69 gr bullets.

Once you find a powder load that shoots ok at magazine length, use that load and start moving the bullet deaper by about .010 for 5 or 6 groups and see if they improve or get bigger.

 

[SpiritNugent]

I assume what I will do is start at magazine length and find a powder charge/primer combo and go from there. I'd really like for these to fit into the magazine since it will be used for hunting.

 

[40X Guy]

Seat your bullets to mag length and use IMR4895 powder then run the ladder test or the OCW test (Optimum Charge Weight). Info can be found on home page or search the forums. This will get that .222 shooting well. A great cartridge!

Frank