doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com 8 x 57JRS reloading COL

Looking for some insight into moving to hand loads for an A. Mulcaz back action hammer combo gun in 8x57JRS x 20 gauge. Through some trials and tribulations, the gun is back to making smaller groups at 200 yards with factory SB and PP 196 grn loads through a Zeiss 2.5-10x50 Diavari scope.

I’d like to work up loads for two bullets: the Sierra 175 grn ProHunter and Speer 200 grn
Hot-Cor, and mainly want to get a good cartridge overall length.

In various websites and Cartridges of the World the COL is listed from 2.835 to 3.17 depending on the projectile.

The short answer for a COL is likely to just follow those recommendations from the powder or bullet companies and move on.

However, in the newest edition of Shooting the British Double Rifle (understood this is an Austrian combination gun, but still…), on pages 107 and 108, Graeme Wright describes what seems to be a good method of developing a COL with different projectiles, as determined by their ogive and how far out of the cartridge case the bullet may protrude to minimize the jump to the rifling.

When I do this with the 175 and 200 grn bullets above, I get 3.35” and 3.39”. The bullets would barely seat in the case at those lengths.

So, I must have a very long chamber throat.

Any advice or thoughts on the above? Just follow the bullet/powder manufacturer’s instruction?

As always, thank you for the insight and advice given on this website!

One thing I've done in similar circumstances is seat the bullet one caliber length and call it good.

Thank you and I'll give that a try

Mt Al,
Your rifle would have likely been throated for round nose bullets. To keep about the same distance from the lands, you would have to seat the bullets you want to use to a longer OAL. At the same time the bullets need to be solidly supported by the case neck. It seems you can't meet both ideals, so you will have to let the target decide which is most important to your rifle. In my limited noncompetitive experience, the most important of the ideals to meet is solid concentric support of the bullet and reading between the lines of Sharps4590 comments, he seems to have similar experience. I suggest you set your sizing die to just "kiss" the shoulder of a fired case, which will size the neck but center the case in the chamber. Once the case is charged, seat the chosen bullet as suggested by Sharps4590. It this load "shoots", great. If not, you can vary seating depth from that starting point. If the bullets have a cannelure, an early variation might be to seat the bullet to that depth (not necessarily more accurate, just a visible indicator of uniform depth). Just remember, this is a hunting rifle you are loading for, and group size is not nearly as important as being able to put one bullet where you want it from a cold barrel. I don't think you will have a problem doing this.
Mike

Same as Sharps an Der Ami, 1 caliber length and 1 shot groups, cold barrel. It being a single shot that's all you will likely get at game.

Thank you all, will load some up a caliber length deep, kiss the shoulder and give it a whirl!