ORIGINAL: Able
How do you determine what is the proper seating depth. Also having a problem getting a tight group so far.
Well since you are shooting a bolt action, finding your oal can be accomplished two ways, with the Stoney Point OAL guage like mentioned above or you can use the old method of putting a bullet in a fireformed case (slightly pinching one side to hold the bullet some) and placing in your gun and closing the bolt. Repeating this several times and taking the average number you get. When you get a number this is what you should work from. Try seating your bullet from .005 to .030 deeper than this number to start. I have seated some bullets as much as .080 and found my most accurate load. Varying this number may also be the answer to your accuracy problem. If changing seating depths doesnt improve accuracy, change bullets, or powder. I ALWAYS use a Stoney Point comparitor guage when I am doing this, (this is different from the OAL guage.) It is a cylindical part that fits onto your caliper and measures from the ogive of the bullet (the part of the bullet that actually comes in contact with the lands of your rifling first.) When I am doing this, I take 2 measurements, 1 with no comparitor, and 1 with, write both numbers down, and check against these numbers during the reloading process. The comparitor aleveates any question of inconsisentcy in lead tip bullets.