new 308 tactical rifle chambered in 308 bisley, throat to short?

[USMC_4_Life]

Hey, I thought I would ask something. So I have a new custom rifle with 0 rounds. Gunsmith chambered it in 308 bisley. It's a practical/ tactical rifle. I will likely never shoot less than a 175 gr bullet and will probably do tactical matches out to 1200 yards and F TR. SO velocity of the heavy rounds is very important. I reload and the rifle has the AICS chassis system magazines that can load to 2.900

So I tested the OAL with the hornady oal guage. I came up with marks on factory BHA 175 gr assembled otm (2.789 oal) and after pushing the round into the chamber with my finger (factory black hills new ammo), I had to push it back out with a cleaning rod. The following oals for 175gr smk were crazy short for what I expected. 175 touching the lands was 2.761-2.755 OAL. I was curious to see if it was just an issue with heavy bullets, stuck a 178 Amax in the oal gauge. That ended up being 2.791...OAL which was the longest so far. And the 155 amax was 2.757 oal.

Do I need to have him add free bore or add lead or whatever if I am shooting 175's or higher ? 185 berger, 208's 220's, whatever I can get with reloader 17 with the heavier bullets.

Goals varget 175 gr loads that are min above 2625 fps, preferably 2700 fps, and heavy bullets sent out at as high of a speed as possible without blowing up my damn face. I am not new to reloading or any of the process, the ammo shot out of this rifle also will likely only be handloads.... I was originally saying use a standard reamer, but we ended up on bisley Like I said before I haven't shot the rifle yet since I just got it tonight. SO I was hypohosizing that burs might be providing false small values since no test shots have been fired since chambering was done last week.

 

[GNERGY]

You might just have some rough edges that will smooth out after you fire it a couple times. I chambered mine with the 95 Palma reamer and it seamed kind of short till I shot it a little and the throat ended up being what the print said. The Berger hybrids have a shorter bearing surface and you can seat them out longer. I like the 168's and the 185's they shoot like lazers.
Tarey

 

[Cody Richardson]

I just had a similar issue with my 2011 Palma reamer, initial OAL was 2.740, that won't do! I sent it back up and had him throat it out to 2.940. I'm shooting the 155.5 Bergers which are similar in length to the 175 sierra, if you are loading to mag length of 2.900 I would get it throated to 2.920 that way if you choose you have a 20 tho jump.

Also send him a dummy round if you choose to send it to get throated out, that way your 'smith knows exactly what you want! Good luck

 

[Shynloco]

USMC,
Because each rifle is different, I'm not going to make suggestions per se, but will share with you something I have encountered in the past. I have a rifle that was built by Ruger (1:10 bull barrel in those days) back in '83 that was "tweaked" for Tactical/Sniper Rifle use in a civilian/Police environment. That rifle always loved a .020 jump and hated the jam. But recently, I had that rifle re-barreled with a Hart MG 1:10 twist 25.5" barrel (plus the stock changed to a Benchrest Stock) that loves the jam. The reamer used was a PTG standard .308 and not the Beasley based upon Dave Kiff's recommendations since I was going to shoot Benchrest with it.

Also in discussions with Sierra about two years ago about the best performing bullet at distances of 100 yds, 500 yds and 1000 yds., their recommendation was that I use the 168 gr HPBT in distances up to 500 yds and go up to the 175 gr HPBT thereafter in distances of 1000k and above. IMHO the use of Varget powder will be good in your efforts.

And I'll also mention something I've done for a very long time, regardless of the make of the NEW barrel, I have always shot a 40 rd break in of 1 shot-clean X5; 5 shots -clean X5; 10 shots- clean and then clean good and you are ready to go. Just my way of be certain that all those little particles are out of the barrel even when I know the barrel has been hand lapped. Just something to think about, but I get the feeling you know very well what you are doing.

Good luck and enjoy that new rig. Alex

 

[USMC_4_Life]

I Sent an email with my findings to the gunsmith, he said he hasn't had a problem and guys are getting excellent accuracy and 2700 fps with the 175's. And offered to increase the throat length if I wanted with a separate reamer. I am not sure he has dealt with someone as anal as me tho lol. Guessing his customers also don't have as much free time for loading and screwing with ammo as I do lol.

Thanks for the feedback guys, late last night I was starting to wonder if I was crazy. I forgot who said it, but keep in mind with AICS mags you have to still check to see if the rounds feed with stock feed ramps some of the 2.850/ longer rounds may not feed.

Also is there a way to get rid of the type verification and the minute/ point garbage?

 

[XTR]

Guessing his customers also don't have as much free time for loading and screwing with ammo as I do lol.

My gunsmith likes people like us, he once told me of the frustration of giving a customer an expensive custom rifle and have the guy come back and complain that it won't group with surplus eastern block ammo.

If he does his job, and we do ours, his work looks good. ;D

 

[USMC_4_Life]

My gunsmith likes people like us, he once told me of the frustration of giving a customer an expensive custom rifle and have the guy come back and complain that it won't group with surplus eastern block ammo.

If he does his job, and we do ours, his work looks good. ;D

OMG that's horrible ! lol Here I am thinking about bullets, and testing different free bore lengths. Eastern block ammo accurate?! That's funny. I MIGHT shoot some black hills, FGMM, David Tubb ammo, or something like that. (shudders at the thought of crap ammo in my 3k precision rifle build). I am busy trying to find a pharmacy milligram scale so I can have SD of 2-5... I don't think that I could get any more opposite than that guy.