Look up JJ Kent at Kent Outdoors. No high fence hunting, no huge hunting fees. He has hunting leases with farmers along the Red River in OK & Tx. Highly recommend JJ. Great guy!!!
To answer your question, meplat trimming is more for target shooting than for hunting. I only know of target shooters using meplat trimmers to increase their BC. I don't know or have heard of anybody using it on hunting loads.
I do exactly what jblomenburg16 does minus seating depth. I load for magazine length of 2.800 OAL for my R700 .308. It seems to like it so I never messed with seat depths. I really like my standard deviation at ~ 10 fps. I shot in a 3x600 yard match last week and all my shots were along the...
Don't worry about the overall length of the projectile. Since your not measuring the ogive they'll all be different. That's because the meplat on SMK are always different. I weigh the SMK and pull the 175.1 and 175.2 for my match load since a bulk of the lot fell between that weight.
Oh Kut, I think you get it! I think many of us have thought of this when ever we see one of your post. You don't have to be a Hoosier to figure this one out.
Sounds good. I've been told the the 175 SMK is very forgiving with jumping the lands. I've had good success loading to magazine length and never bothered with bullet seating depth.
Have you worked up your load using Varget yet?
The reason I ask is because I'd work up a load that the rifle likes then play with bullet seating depth.
I'm a firefighter and keep my powder stored in my reloading room on the shelf. Just take a look in most residential garages. Way more bad stuff stored in garages and firefighters still go in.