I need your guys help in solving a puzzle for me. I have been reloading for my Win 270 and my wives Browning 243 now for about 3 years. I was getting to the point where I was starting to feel pretty confident in what I was doing and actually thinking that I know what I was doing.

About a week ago my brother asked me to put some 243 shells together for him. After buying all the components I head down to the reloading room and started to gather all the information that I would need to reload his shells. I was doing just fine until I went to measure the OAL for his rifle. So I take and put together the Stone Point OAL gauge, remove the bolt from his gun and proceed to get the OAL measurement. When I removed the gauge the first time I knew that I had to have made a mistake. The Stony Point gauge was showing that the bas of the bullet was right at the mouth of the case. I measured the OAL about a dozen more times with the same results. Still thinking that something must be wrong I used a 2 other bullets (1 Hornady and 1 Nosler) to see if anything would change. The results form these two bullets came back the same as the first.

So my questions here are 1) Does this mean that the throat of the rifle has worn out and my brother should look in to having a new barrel installed? 2) Knowing that it would be unsafe to load the shells to the length that the Stony Point gauge was showing. Could I load them to my reloading manuals specs and still be safe?

Thanks
400bull

Howdy 400Bull. I think your brothers rifle is fine some just have deep throats. In this case your fine seating to the manual specs or go as deep as the mag will let you, measure the mag and go about 15ths-20ths deeper to asure smooth feeding, just make sure your seated atleast as deep as the diamiter of the bullet (for a hunting load) and you shouldn't have any problems by the way Welcome to huntingnut!!

Some rifles have long throats and some have excessive erosion like you mentioned. It wouldn't hurt to have a gunsmith with a bore scope to have a look see in the chamber. You might even try a chamber casting and see what the cast looks like.

No problem reloading for it though using SAMMI max over all length or less. You may still get good hunting accuracy out of the rifle. Just have to shoot a series of test loads and see. Will the reloads shoot better than factory? If it's a bummer in the accuracy department it may be time for a trip to the gunsmith for a new barrel.

I said this to someone the other day. Don't reload for anyone other than yourself. Instead, encourage your friends and relatives to start reloading themselves or just buy factory ammo. Remember you need a FFL to reload commercially. That means you can't charge for components or your reloading service. If you just absorb the costs yourself you still have the liability if your rounds cause damage, injury, or death. I know your home owners insurance agent would have a fit if he knew you reloaded for someone else.

Yeah, we might as well not have SAAMI specs. So few of the manufacturers adhere to them. I have some rounds where the bullet length and the case length are still shorter than my SAAMI OAL. That would leave absolutely no room to hold the bullet in the case. Most of my shooting is from the bench so I don't have to worry about the rounds being too long for the magazine. I just feed them in single shot fashion. I don't know why the manufacturers make these ridiculously long chambers, but I suspect it's the work of one of their lawyers. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

Many of the "Over the Counter" rifles have what I would term excessive freebore. I overheard a Remington Rep and a SHOT show in the early 90s say that they were putting longer throats in and telling the customers that it helped equal out the diffrences in factory ammunition. HOGWASH!!! Some of the companies are doing this to provide a bit more of a safety margin. I honestly think this is because of the advent of the various all copper bullets that have become popular, these bullets will raise pressures dramatically. Barnes has even gone to their Triple Shock, the main reason for this is to lower pressures. There is another very outstanding bullet that is also all copper, it is made in South Africa and I have been using them for the past 5 years. I think they are better than the Barnes.

gscustom.co.za/

I have spoken with Gerard and also communicated with him via e-mail. He has a lot of very good and informative information on his web site that merits you taking a good look at. I HIGHLY recommend his product, even though the price is a bit high his bullets are worth every penny you spend.