Exceeding Overall Length

[norcal01]

So I'm starting to work up a load for a R700 in .300 Win Mag. I'll be using R22and 180g Nosler Accubonds. I followed the procedure given in the Nosler manual for determining how deep to seat the bullets. (barely seating one into a case and coloring it with marker, then closing the action to let the lands push the bullet back into the case and then extracting and measuring it) Doing this results in an OAL of 3.525. If I follow the instructions I should seat the bullets .015 to .030 deeper than the measurement obtained in the above steps. This would give me an overall length of 3.495 to 3.510. The problem is that according to the manual the maximum overall length should only be 3.340 which means I would still exceed the S.A.A.M.I. length by at least .155. Is this safe or should I just seat to the S.A.A.M.I. specs?

[J-cat]

Seat bullets to mag length and work-up your load from there. Chasing lands in a factory rifle is counterproductive. The leade is too long, the bullet is often too short, and you gain absolutely nothing in terms of accuracy. For every load that shoots awesome with bullets jammed into the lands there is another that shoots the same from mag length.

[shooting4life]

I agree with j-cat. Just load to mag length. It would only be useful to load to the lands if you are using Berger bullets or are using heavy for caliber bullets that will allow you to get to the lands with the appropriate amount of bullet in the case.

[norcal01]

Thanks guys, I'll just load them to spec. I want to load ammunition that will be as accurate as possible but it sounds like it won't make all that much difference for my purposes and loaded to S.A.A.M.I. length will be fine. Thanks!