300g flour, 210g water, 4g yeast, 6g salt you know the drill

I scored it really deep but it just rose up to where the score flattened out and then couldn't go anymore. How do you guys score your dough? I think I could get a lot more oven spring if i work out how to score my dough better because the rise always seems to "max out" at the depth of the score.

Also, how do you guys recommend getting a good dark crust? I'm doing 500F for 25 minutes covered and 15 uncovered. I think it may be the all purpose flour i'm using. I make so many loaves though, I think it's time to invest in some baker's flour, some parchment paper? I don't even have a dough scraper.

Once I'm back home from college I'm gonna start a sourdough as well, so I can't wait to experiment with that.