That's a lot to take in and process. I'm sorry to hear about your wife, I hope she improves quickly for both your 'sakes.
Primary use of the rifle,
Most important thing to keep in mind. You say 100-300 yards. That's fine. Shooting at what? Paper targets? Benchrest? Deer hunting? Squirrels? Chihuahua's? Bullet selection must take into account the desired task of the individual rifle.
My personal thoughts are to not waste money or time on factory ammo. Most of my rifles have never had a factory round fired down the barrel. That is just me though, not saying it's "wrong".
Handloads. You are using IMR 4064. That's fine. Do you also have access to other powders, or is this "it"? Are you starting off with a batch of clean, fresh, "virgin" brass? Or is part of your plan to use the brass from your fired factory "test" ammo? What about primers? Have several choices to try, or we just talking "one"?
My own thought preference is to run multiple bullet/powder/primer combinations first (changing only one thing at a time), and worry about bullet seating depth last. For a magazine fed hunting rifle, I'll start my OAL on initial loads at somewhere around .030"-ish, unless I have magazine length issues. For my target rifle loads, I'll usually start OAL at around .010"-ish, depending on magazine length issues (most of mine are either single shots, or have single shot followers installed). But I focus on the powder/bullet combos first. Once I have that, then I drop the charge lvl again so I can move the bullet OAL and run it up again.
For competition level target shooting, if you're shooting 300 yards and under, I would say 155 to 168 gr SMK's would be where I would start. Most of the time, it's been my experience that if those don't shoot in your gun, then your gun has problems. Not always, but they have been pretty consistent bullets for me. This may require you to drop your initial powder IMR 4064, and go with something else, but those bullets should shoot. I think there's also a couple of 135's out now that may work well for your shorter range needs.
If you're just plinking for fun and relaxation, then just about any commercial 150-ish weight bullet will put holes in paper. Sierra gamekings, Hornady sp's, Speer's (although the "new" Hotcor's don't seem to shoot as well for me as the old ones did-at least not in my 6x47(6x222Remmag)), or even the Remington Corlokt'd component bullets if you can find them. So if plinking, which is fine, can save some $ using standard grade bullets.
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