question on how to find the right load

[scooterman27006]

srab i appreciate the welcome and fast response - this is the first forum on shooting for me and i am excited about doing some posting and reading - i have kind of lol done exactly what you said except well ok im gonna start with the latest addition - its the ruger 204 - now i bought a remington 700 in this caliber and had a little trigger work done on it - now i will mention i bought a 204 encore barrel heavy 26" now i have only tried varget powder so far only because its the only one for the loads i saw - well i tried 24 25 26 g of varget and so far 26 shows to be a little better - now as far as col - its recommended 2.25 and on some 2.30 that is where i have lots of questions - col recommended is way too short and i have a gauge to measure and the encore and remington both need to be about 2.33and the encore 2.37 - well i had to go with a 50 g berger bullet (18.00) a box lol in order to get enough col - the hornady bullets wouldnt go in the brass far enough to get the length -way too short- so with the 50 grain and running the col out more than suggested im still getting not so great groups and i just dont understand it - just so you can get an idea of what im using - varget and berger 50 gr LTB winchester primers and once fired brass from the many hornady factory stuff i had to shoot to start with - the 32 and 40 g stuff was all over the place by the way thats why i wanted to play with the col and see what happened - now i can understand one off the wall every now and then but this is rediculous and thats why i am gonna enjoy this forum- now as far as the scopes one has a really nice weaver fixed power 36 T series scope and the other has a cheap tasco target scope but it has proven itself on another gun so it should be ok - now you see why i have questions - tell me as far as col how much should i deduct from the actual length or should it touch the lands - not really sure but i have read you want the bullet as close as possible without touching - thanks for the info and i got lots more to post on lol scoot