450Bushmaster.net

So I consider myself a relatively experienced reloader and I've searched the forum and don't see much information about COAL. I have a 450 Bushmaster on the way to me and I'm going to be reloading for so I'm asking some questions in advance. I don't have the magazine yet but I'm pretty sure that most AR magazines will take a coal of 2.26 to 2.265. Looks like the coal from my manual for the 250 FTX is at 2.225. Is anyone reloading them longer? I'm use to reloading for bottleneck cartridges and have generally found that the closer I get to lands, the better accuracy I get. Haven't done much straight wall reloading but it looks like most of you are just using the standard coal.

There is about .200 free bore in the 450B so getting close to the lands won't happen with a AR with most if not all bullets.

My AR I just load 2.250 and call it good

Well the good thing is that gives you one less thing to mess with. Guess you just have to play with the amount of crimp and powder charge.

here is a chamber drawing for the 450B

I usually go with 2.26 COL. Don't give it much thought.

The word Overall is just that, one word. COAL can be expressed as COL.

Hoot

i ran mine at 2.225 like hornady's 9th said and had good results. i'll have to expierement with stretching them out to 2.250 and see if i can squeeze a little more umph out of them

I'll probably just stick to loading them as long as I can to fit in the magazine. I have noticed in the past that some bullets are not perfect and if you try and load them too long some may be 2.26 and some may be slightly longer and may not fit in the mag. Not sure how uniform the FTX bullets are.

So yesterday I loaded up some bullets for my first range trip. I purchased a Bartz magazine for my rifle and did some playing around with the loaded rounds and magazine. My magazine will allow you to load up rounds with a coal of 2.3. It's definitely a little bigger that a regular AR magazine. I did just load them up to 2.26 but may try to load them up a little longer on my next range trip.

as a rule of thumb ive always read about - try to keep at least 0.250 of the bullet in the case mouth so that its got a stable foundation to grip to on your brass.

I'll have to check that but I think I've got at least that much seated into the case.