How far off the lands do you start?

[Wrench]

Most accuracy smiths will tell you jam 20 in or 20 out to start. Don't start at a light kiss.

A jam is a nightmare in a hunting rifle.....so 20 off as a minimum.

Without a gauge you can put a dab of super glue in a case mouth of a fired case and chamber it with your bullet of choice. Once set....that's pretty much your kiss length.

You can drop a sized case in the chamber and measure to the case head with caliper or if you can pull the tube, a chamber checker.....them seat a bullet long and lower it in and measure again. You can take the difference and seat the bullet that much....and be at your kiss length.

The actual kiss can be tricky to measure. The important thing is to pick a spot and document it and then work away from it till you satisfy your needs.....like fitting in the mag box or accuracy....etc.

 

[WVELK]

Will throw my hat in a say you goal dictates methodology. I start with .020 off. Some say distance from lands does not matter, some say go with .030 and roll. For me, my “goal” for my magnums is to be able to have three shots inside or cutting the lines of a one inch square on a sight in target at 600 yards. Do you need to be that accurate to hunt? No. But, I am a little obsessed with trying to be as accurate as possible. So in my situation distance off the lands is very important and I can tell you it will often really fine tune your groups as a last or next to last step. But, to answer you question I start at .020 off unless I know what that bullet generally likes. For example, 180 VLDs for me always shoot best jammed .003 to .004 into the lands so I would start there with the 180 VLD and a new rifle. Hope you get whatever accuracy you are looking for my friend.

 

[SloppyJ]

I've been all over the board on this. Once I was a huge proponent for seating depth. I still think it makes a difference because what I've seen but generally I'm looking for a bullet/powder combo that just plain shoots.

I normally start 20 off and do a bunch of powder charge testing. If it won't group semi-decently there, I abandon it and go back to the drawing board.

The more I test the more I see that it's either going to shoot a specific combination of bullet/powder or it's not. From there, I'll do a bit of seating depth testing to fine tune it and call it a day. Gone are the times of trying to force something to shoot with a ton of seating depth testing. If it's not generally close across the board, I don't want to deal with it.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Whatever depth removes land marks from showing up on my sharpie ink. This has proven simple and accurate for NBT, ELDX, and ELDM out of my 7-08 and 25-284. Not precise I know, but it works.

EDIT: in both of these Tikka rifles, this method puts me at the bottom edge of bearing surface seated at the neck shoulder junction, similar to @Harvey_NW

 

[Harvey_NW]

If I'm restricted by mag length then I load to functional length. If it's got a long throat I prefer to have the bottom edge of bearing surface seated at the neck shoulder junction, don't care about the amount of jump. Anymore my throats are custom cut to be at .050" off with a certain weight class bullet when seated there, and most of the time within in 1 or 2 tests I'm done with "load development". I do zero seating depth testing, if the combo doesn't shoot I swap a component and retest.

 

[SupressYourself]

This may sound too simplistic or generalized, but it's worked pretty well for me. If there's a factory load that uses the same bullet that you want to use, shoot a box of that. If it shoots decent, measure that and start there. Ammo makers have done a lot of testing to determine what's going to work well in a wide variety of guns. You can always do a seating depth test and tweak from there.

 

[Okie_Poke]

I try to keep seating depth as simple as I can. After I've measured my max COAL/CBTO with a Hornady/Stoney Point tool, I pick a seating depth that gives me "enough jump" and is under magazine length, with a preference for seating the base of the bearing surface near the neck-shoulder junction of the case when possible. I also like round numbers (e.g., 15 or 20 instead of 16 or 22) on my seating die micrometer. By "enough jump," I mean at least 0.020" off the lands and often 0.050" off the lands, though sometimes my actual jump ends up being much further depending on the bullet, chamber, and magazine restrictions. If that doesn't give me the precision I want, I switch bullets or maybe powders, but I rarely try to "tune" the seating depth. I view seating depth as a very small "knob" in the load tuning process that's frankly not worth my time to mess with hardly ever. But: (i) I don't shoot VLD bullets and (ii) I'm not shooting F-Class or benchrest or any game animal at >600 yards. I'm not saying the seating depth doesn't ever matter, but if the bullet is that temperamental to tune I don't want to use it. YMMV.