Folks,

I'm giving my first try to handloading my Brwning A-bolt .300 WSM. Here's my question:

The cartridge chambers smoothly and fits in the magazine at an OAL of 0.040" longer than the OAL stated in the Hornady #6 manual. Is this okay?

I have very little experience on the matter.

Thank you
EMC2

It's good that your rifle will function with longer than standard length ammo. This will help when you want to seat your bullets closer to the lands to attain better accuracy.

With that said, it's a good idea to know how far off the lands your loaded rounds are. The most common suggestion on this forum is to start at .020" back from the lands. If that length of round won't feed, then seat the bullet deeper until it will.

The reason I'm saying this is because if you have your bullets seated out as far as they will go and still fit your magazine, depending on what style of bullet you are using and how much freebore your rifle has, you can get unexpectedly high pressures if your bullets are in contact with or close to contacting your rifling.

amndouglas