New to reloading. Have loaded and shot 20 rounds, I mean new . . .
All's well so far. But I'm confused about how deep to seat the bullet. Most all books recommend a 2.8" cartridge. But that would be .074 from the lands/grooves in my Savage 110. I put an empty round (no primer even) un seated in my rifle and close the bolt. It measured 2.874" and showed groove marks so I assume it was just touching.
Do I go by the book (2.8"), or is it O.K. to seat it as close to the lands as I can . . . say off by .005" (2.869")?
And how much poder? Low end or high when seating close?

The guide is just a guide. You can load all the way to the lands, just start off powder low and work up.

My rule of thumb is one caliber in the case at least. Unless its short necked like a 300win mag. so if your loading 30-06, there should be at least .3" of surface bearing bullet in the case. They just get to fragile if you don't.

You of course don't want to jam into the rifling. Its good to know where the rifling is relative to your round. You can modify a sized case with a dremel tool by splitting the neck, and adjusting the tension by squeezing, carefully place a bullet in the modified brass, and carefully closing the bolt, and extracting. Then measure. Or you can get a stoney point gauge. I rarely use the stoney point anymore.

Just taking a charged sized bullet seated case and putting in the gun to see marks is not a good procedure IMO. It won't show you precision measurements to setup your sizer.

Just search for split case bullet seating method.

Wow . . . I just tried the "split" method and it was .010" shorter. If I take .015" off of that, my overall length would be 2.849". Still almost .050" longer than recommended.
I am going to try the ladder method of checking at the range. Using same powder and bullet but using different seating depths in .005" increments, and different powder charges.
And will be ready to duck!

I have tried this years ago, and couldn't get the consistency of measurements I do with the stoney point or the split case method.

The marks alone on the rod would be larger than 2mm.

curious what you find.

Your rarely going to find a chamber where you can touch the rifling and stay under Max book COL. Some cases you don't want too.

Out of the dozens of rifles I have owned, I have one 7mm-08 that was made in the 1982, that you have to be real deep to load. Rest are typical of your measurements. I assume that rifle is that way because remington only started loading that caliber in 1980. so it was fairly young.

You have to understand they need to account for all kinds of bullets being fired, even fat roundnose bullets that would touch the rifling faster due to the ogive.

I used to have such trouble with the stoney point, but someone suggested I take a dowl and put pressure against the bullet (very slight) and my sensitivity would shoot up. They were right.

I am always willing to learn a new trick.

.... Magazine length needs to be checked too. No sense loading past the magazine OAL if this is a hunting rifle. Been there, done that... highly embarassing...

Yeah, it's a hunting rifle. Good stuff all!! Thanks.

AS stated you will be constricted by your magazine length. Also your new are willing to beat your eye sight on your OCL as measured to the lands? When you are 100% sure of the actual OCL I would suggest working up your max load at 0.020" of the lands if the magazine permits it and then working back to a shorter OCL by 0.005" or even 0.010" incraments too find the OCL thats give best accuacy.

I bought a LEE hand press just so I could load my best load for accuacy at a longer OCL and than at the range could shorten three rounds shoot them shorten three more at the next shorter OCL and so on till the group started to open back up. I stop there with the data in hand and the remaining ammo could then be shortend to the best OCL for more shooting.

Ditto to that! My two most accurate rifles (.300 WM and a 7mm Mag) are as long as will fit in the mag, and the bullet jump is ...you'd better be sitting down..... over 4/10s of an inch!