What does your reloading book say Sir!

I wish I had a nickle I had to use my boot to open anothers bolt because they deviated from the seating depth and there primers were blown and base of the case split. They were told the closer you seat a bullet to the lands, the more accuracy you have. BS! You know how much pressure that must have been, WOW! And that bomb almost went off next to me!!!My 03-A3 30-06 you can almost seat a 180 grain all the way out and it drives tacks with 100 grain 1/2 jacket Hornady and Speer bullets and what about the Weatherby Magnum line with all that free bore, no accuracy problem here or hearing anyone seating the bullets out for additional accuracy.

The closer you seat the bullet to the rifling, the more chamber pressure you will have. If the bullet is touching the rifling, it doesn't get the movement kneaded to safely engage the rifling. Pushing the bullet into the rifling can and will blow the gun up!

Is it worth it I ask!

Are you gaining anything by deviating from the reloading data?

I never lost a Match or Game because of not deviating from the recommended "OAL" seating depth! I've tried this practice before, ran it across the Chronograph and I found I didn't achieve better performance. I have found better ways to achieve better accuracy. In fact all I did is increased chamber pressure. Lowering the case just as the bullet barely starts seating into the case, rotating it about 90 to 180ish turn and seat to recommended "OAL" and weighing each and every charge sure does make a difference.

What happens if your in a remote hunt and you open the bolt and the bullet remains stuck in your rifling/barrel? YOUR SCREWED!

If we're still talking about the Savage 7mm-08 from your earlier question it sounds like to me the best you can do is seat at OAL. And then, and only then, if you are not contacting the rifling. Clay's right on the potential pressure problem there.

My best accuracy is by backing off the lands of the rifling some. How much? Some of my stuff doesn't care -kinda like what Clay was referring to. My Contender 7mm TCU and my Ruger #1 7mm Rem Mag both, I seat out pretty far but NOT touching (for the overpressure reasons Clay referred to) the rifling. They do produce better results getting closer for some reason. Of course these are single-shots and there is no magazine feed issue. AND, as I was developing loads for those I was super-careful watching for pressure signs and case issues.

Because of the ogive of the particular bullet you are seating in that case, it may not be possible (or safe) to be seated out real far and reach OAL. You could also have another bullet with a more swept-back ogive that you could never seat out far enough to touch the rifling, and to do so you would have to be far exceeding OAL.

And then, you still need a reasonable amount of the base of the bullet still seated in the case/case neck. All this said, in a bolt action I wouldn't stray beyond max OAL no matter what. The engineers and ballisticians came up with that dimension for reasons.

When I first started reloading, the oldster that was guiding me explained that reloading is management of a bunch of variables. Some of these variables you can directly control, and some, like how the chamber and/or the rifling of the gun was cut, you are playing what is dealt to you.

Stay safe. Hope you get some good results. It may take some patience and persistence. And no, I don't think it's gunsmith time yet.