Thank You Dave. Yes, the plain Lapua is a very good chambering. I have a 31" Border barrel 1:10" twist that I have played with for two seasons along with getting the stock ready and heavy enough. The recoil and torque is surprising at these levels of power, so I can´t say that the package is quite there yet for competition, especially the part that pulls the trigger.
The reason I started thinking of an Improved was that I have to fullsize the cases too often for my taste. In my HV BR in 6BR I got about 20 stiff reloads out of the cases with no lengthening of the cases before I had to fullsize them. A 30° angle and pretty straight taper evidently does the trick. So I ordered two body reamers from Elliott with 33° angle and absolutly minimum taper. I´m no beliver in very steep shoulder angles, yet.
The pilot is 22 caliber, so I have plenty of options and the possibility to shorten the case for smaller calibers. My smith is chambering a 31" 1:8,5 twist 308 right now (he isn´t answering any calls, which is a positive sign). But the 338 is, and will be, my main caliber.
sr90. In a Hodgdon 2000 manual the pressures of various belted magnums are listed at 53000 to 54800 and the 300RUM at max 63100 CUP. CUP´s are, ofcourse, not direktly comparable to "real" measures of pressure. These should roughly correspond to 430/440 and 460MPa. Can´t find the translation factor for PSI to MPa. One pound is .4536kg, and sq inch is .00064516m2. That would make 1Pa=703.7 PSI. But one Pa is 1Newton/m2 which includes an acceleration of 1m/s2 that I can recall how to handle.
In a brief moment of obstinacy I exceeded the reloading data with N170 and got the Scenars to 3120fps, but the cases popped out of the chamber as with midrange loads. I got the feeling that the rifle breaks before the case. They are apparently almost idiotproof, the rifles _might_ not be, especially if buildt on narrow threaded actions. AKI
