> There are MANY ways to find the
Max OAL, but what we've written up (as referred to above) is fast and easy. It also doesn't require you to buy any fancy tools. The first time it will take you 15 minutes. After that, all follow on times will take you about 3.
We especially like it because it returns a solid, repeatable number. A lot of the ways people are doing this take
a lot more time and only return an average range, or general area not to exceed. I for one prefer the exact number. It's the difference between
science and
approximation.
Of course the merits of "fast and easy" become very clear, very quickly, because you need to do this test on every new-to-you bullet. Every bullet will in fact have its own discrete Max OAL.
> Early on we noticed that feed issues began to appear when cartridges got to be VERY short, then SAAMI came out and published 1.000" as the
Min OAL. I have personally loaded rounds at 0.985" which fed and fired just fine, so the 1 inch is not a hard reloading law, but simply a "good rule of thumb".
>> As the process notes, any form of
Lead or Coated Lead bullet is going to be oversize and may therefore scrub on the freebore. We highly suggest you reduce the dia back to 0.355" before beginning.
Hope this helps.
