How much shorter should loaded rounds be than the magazine length in order for them to feed properly. (I am loading 95 gr VLD for 243 Win in Rem 700 SPS).
Always refer to your loading manuals. Maximum oal length for a magazine in 243 winchester is 2.710. Hornady's manual will tell you they got their best loads at 2.630 oal for 95 - 100gr bullets. Measure your magazine inside length. Usually .005 to .010 under works well. Hope that helps. Capt kurt
It really depends on your magazine length and design. With most rifles if you can push a round squarely all the way to the bottom of your magazine without it binding it should work. This is a trial and error situation for you and your individual rifle.
Many hunting bullets vary considerably in length. After measuring length of the magazine, I would deduct about .050 - .080 and keep them there to be safe.
I created a blog post that lists all of the max COAL that will fit in several different magazines. I thought you guys might find it helpful for reference.