Users of 245 H/I-Loks COAL questions

[RBDMTJager]

Am ready to begin reloading for my my bolt action CVA cascade in 450 BM. I'm using Hornady Custom Grade four die set.
I have Starline brass that my brass prep for was:
Full length resized brass
Didn't trim as all 40 pieces of brass were =/- 0.020-0.025" of each other.
Uniformed primer pocket'
De-burred flash hole
Lightly chamfered case mouth
Polished inside and outside of case mouth using 0000 steel wool using home made polishing jig I put in my 20V Dewalt bat drill.
Cleaned brass by hand to remove Horandy sizing wax.

Using .452" Hornady Interlocks
Used CCI #450 magnum small primers

Using Hogdgdon Lil Gun.

Have a Hornady COAL tools and will use them to help set the COAL of my finished reloads.

For those who have considerable experience reloading the 245 grain Hornady Interlok what is your a COAL that tends to give the best accuracy from a bolt rifle?
My research as been turning up a COAL of 2.300-2.350 as yielding the best accuracy from bolt guns using 245-250 grain bullet, but would greatly appreciate hearing from others who have achieved good accuracy what COAL they used.

[Hoot]

IMHO, no two rifles, even same brand and model, are necessarily the same chamber and freebore cut. As such, you should see at what Distance To the Lands your particular rifle likes those particular bullets to be loaded, based upon both groups and velocity SD. Admittedly, velocity SD is usually more dependent upon powder charge but DTL matters as well. It's tough grading a seating depth ladder test based on groups with the 450b as it can produce fantastic groups across a lot of charge and DTL variation. And velocity SD can be all over the place because consistent and adequate neck tension in this caliber can sometimes be hard to come by. A quick OBT check in QuickLoad, based upon the 22" barrel, to see what a good charge would be says 42.2 gr Lil Gun, but that's already starting off a little high. Bolt actions can take it however and Starline brass is tough. If you prefer to start with a lower pressure initial charge, then go with 40.0 gr. The optimum seating depth for your particular rifle with that particular bullet will still be the same regardless of powder charge. Using one of those two powder charges as a starting point, you can load up a ladder test, starting with 3-shot rungs and shortening the COL in .010 increments and see which three shots group best in your particular rifle. At 2.30 COL, you'll have a half caliber seating depth, which should be plenty for the case to hold onto. That would be a good starting point. Then work down 2.29, 2.28, 2.27, etc for as many 3-shot rungs in the ladder as you chose to shoot. That's the process I use in my bottleneck calibers when I don't have a known good recipe to start with.

Hoot

[RBDMTJager]

Hoot, once again thanks a great deal.
I will do as you advise. Will start at 41 grains of Lil'gun and at 2.300 COAL and that will get me a CBTO of 1.873 and go from there.
I'm using Hornady .452" 245 grain Interlocks because that's all Cabela's had in stock on the shelves when I went there. To be 100% honest I really didn't need another short range deer rifle as I have no less than three fully rifled 12ga slug rifles and three JM stamped Marlin 336c's in 35 Remington I have developed excellent accurate loads for all three 336c's. I was nothing short of amazed by the 336c's accuracy for lever action rifles with my reloads. Not only are the LA's 336c's way more accurtae than I ever hoped or imagined, they weren't the least but difficult to develop a stellar accurate load for. Actually used a load from a vintage 1970's Sierra manual using IMR3031. Worked great in all three rifles.

But the 336c's aren't legal on public ground unless I trimmed the 35 Rem brass from 1.9 to 1.7 and I did it to one piece of brass and saw it was not a practical or viable way to turn 35 Remington into a public ground legal round. And I just didn't want to play close enough is good enough with the DNR/LEO when I handed him one of my reloads where my brass that I knew would be at least 0.10" to long. Add to that 12ga Sabot ammo went up from $10-$12 a box last time I bought it to currently $23-$25 dollars a box of 5 rounds put me in kind of a bind.
I had built up a very sizable amount of Cabela's points and reward points on my Discover card that combined would cover over 90% of the cost of a new rifle, two spare mags dies, powder, bullets and brass. I already had a Leupold VariX-II and Warne Horizontally split rings, and all the primers I will ever need. So I used my Cabela's points to buy the Dies, powder, and bullets and my Discover points to buy the brass, spare mags and 90% of the cost of the rifle.

I went with 450 Bushmaster as I felt it was the most practical, affordable and powerful public land legal deer round I could get in a bolt rifle platform and felt it was far superior to the 350 Legend, especially if like me you reload. And the final factor that made me choose 450BM was as I had always planned on expanding my deer hunting to my neighboring states and now they all have legalized the 450 Bushmaster for use on public land deer hunts, save for the fact IL mandates only single shot rifles, so if I wish to use 450BM there I will have to buy a Henry or CVA single shot in 450BM. Hopefully IL will come to it's sences and allow bolt guns in 450BM.

But bottom line unless I really wanted to spend some serious cash on a public land legal wildcat like .358 Hoosier that would force me to buy a set of custom dies, very costly custom made brass and a semi-custom rifle which I couldn't justify the cost for a rifle legal in only one state, my second best choice IMO was the 450 BM.

[Hoot]

Just one point of importance after your last post. I advised using either 42.2 or 40 gr of Lil Gun, not 41 gr. 41 gr is about as far between the two predicted OBT nodes as you can get. However, experience has taught me that QuickLoad is not a concrete formula. Just a close predictor. In practice (see signature) aside from the 250 FTX, it has often overestimated the actual velocities obtained from Lil Gun. Not by leaps and bounds but enough to often adjust the formula to make real and predicted velocities align. I mention that because OBT nodes are influenced by bullet velocity while its inside the bore. So, my advice of those two charges is based upon a prediction. Your choice of 41 gr could be the magic number as well. All of this is a kind of mental chewing gum exercise considering the fact that you will be using it for shooting in what my state defines as a "Slug Zone" distance, not the open prairie where accuracy plays a more important role. The 450b is known for its lethality, not BR application. I just approach every reloading event as one that is chasing ultimate accuracy, regardless of caliber.

With deer hunting, the old tenet of "if your slugs can hit a 9 inch paper plate at 100 yds, its good" is still fairly reliable advice.

Hoot