SmallCaliberCentral

I am new to reloading and have owned my .204 for a little over a year , its a allweather hawkeye , junk actually but am holding out to buy a cz527.Anyway no matter what i do i cant get any of my loads in any caliber to fly good , i noticed on this board that you list your oal's and for the .204 almost all of the "favorite" loads listed are over over the saami 2.260"
so basically i am stumped now , when i test my oal , i cant get any bullets , "vmax , btips, berger , varmint grenades" to contact the lands at all.
any advise??

welcome to the forum.

I've only been loading for about a year now, but from what I understand, the general rule is to keep a length equal to the bullet diameter seated in the case. So that would mean seat your bullet so at least .204" of it is inside the case. I've also learned that being a fairly new caliber, the length to the lands is longer than in past factory designs. I haven't heard conclusively if this is for some safety reason or not. Many factory chambers will not allow seating to within even .050 of the lands without the bullet falling right out of the case. While length to lands is longer in most of these factory chambers, I've also read many times of hand loaders finding they get MORE accuracy leaving a jump to the lands rather than even trying to get it close.

There should be much more reading you can do on the subject if you search here and elsewhere.

Some rifles will not let you get to the lands with a loaded round because the chamber is so far out. You have to be careful in that if you can get to the lands, they will not fit in the magazine because they are too long. There are 2 sweet spots normally. One just off the lands and one further back. Sometimes you just have to play with the seating depth to find the shorter sweet spot. Every brand of rifles are different. I like the Savages because you can move the barrel into the case by screwing the barrel in further.

"I like the Savages because you can move the barrel into the case by screwing the barrel in further."

Whoa there pardner. With a Savage with the barrel nut, you can change your headspace which is the distance between the bolt head and the shoulder of the case. You can't do anything to change the distance between the case shoulder and the lands. For that, you need a new reamer and a chamber set back job. Be safe y'all.