Do yourself a favor and buy a neck die of some sort, it made all the difference in the world with mine. I neck size mine with a 6.5 Rem Mag die because I am cheap like that, but shoots good is shoots good. I actually do the same with my 6.5-284 as well. It doesn't go all the way to the shoulder and sometimes you can see a short ring, but I ain't in it for looks. Mine likes S&B brass, and groups pretty well with the soft points you mentioned. Unless you are dead set on a 140 grain bullet, try a 120 Sierra Pro Hunter loaded to 3.1 inches and 47 grains of H4350, this is close to max in my gun, I can go up to 48 but the bolt is just starting to get sticky, have some slight ejector marks and it didn't make one FPS difference in velocity, both average 2793 and the 47 grain load had a much lower ES and SD. I used a CCI250 primer because I had a bunch of them, and figured it would be sufficient, but I still prefer Fed 215. 210Match primers work well but you can get a little more velocity from the magnum primers and that short barrel. I was working up my deer season load with it today and shot a 3/4 inch 5 shot group with this load and with no cool down time between shots, it was 90 degrees out. It seems like 2750-2850 is the magic velocity with mine, no matter what bullet or powder, under that I have to get below 2500 to get it to group well again, there isn't a lot over that with a 120 + grain bullet and that short barrel. Hope this helps. Good luck and congrats, you got a pretty sweet ride there. I love mine.
