Darkker, I thought I recognized you from over at 68forums. I'm familiar with the pressure trace work Constructor has posted about over there, and getting one of those systems is definitely on my list for eventually.

By "pushing the top end", I wasn't talking about chamber pressures. I just meant the largest/heaviest bullets that would work well in a factory-barrel 22-250 rifle. Always within safe pressures. If the job that needs to be done is outside the equipment's capability, get different equipment. There's always the 6.8, .308, or maybe some flavor of 6.5 may get added to the safe.

The "it depends" answer is baked into my questions. Maybe it was too long and wordy for that to be clear. Courtney has posted an Excel file that has the Miller solid, Miller/Courtney plastic tipped, and Courtney/Courtney open tip formulas all built into it. I've been playing with that, and put a decent net around the "it depends" zone. FWIW, the velocities I have been calculating with are ~150 fps below max loads, just to be conservative.

My reason for registering here and posting was to try to find reports of some real-world experience that would give some shape to reality in the "it depends" uncertainty cloud. :)