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Factory Barrels Stink!

Agent Ronin

Private
Minuteman
Jan 8, 2008
47
0
Pennsylvania
So I'm helping my sis's BF makeup a nice match load for his R700 in 30-06, granted its a standard sporter countour but still. So i go and measure the throat length today.

From case head to ogive 2.830"
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I cant even seat a 168gn SMK close to that lol. (compared to the factory RP ammo he was using, the bullet was jumping .230" until it hit the lands, thats right .230"!)

So the quest starts to find him a good "cheap" heavy contour barrel...
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Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

I have 2 rifles, both winchester's,or clones that have a jump like that, & they both shoot 1/2 moa.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

My rem700 sps tactical is 2.951 to the lands... and it still shoots 168's and 175SMK's into a bug hole.

I find that what most people claim to be "rifle deficiencies" are actually caused by the shooters inability to properly work a load for it.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

You'd be surprised what a crimp die will do...
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

In my Savage I can seat the bullet into the lands and still fit in the mag. I don't think it would matter too much as some rifles shoot bug holes even with a good jump to the lands. Not sure how they shoot some bullets known to be sesative to jump though.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

Am I the only one who thinks those numbers are a bit short for a 30-06?
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Downzero</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Am I the only one who thinks those numbers are a bit short for a 30-06? </div></div>

2.830" from ogive to case head. COAL would have been in the 3.3" range.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: orkan</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My rem700 sps tactical is 2.951 to the lands... and it still shoots 168's and 175SMK's into a bug hole.

I find that what most people claim to be "rifle deficiencies" are actually caused by the shooters inability to properly work a load for it. </div></div>

Exactly.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: h2osport</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Probably not the place to ask, but if you cannot get the bullet seated into the lands, how do you decide COL?</div></div>

Magazine length.
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Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

Factory throats tend to be long to accomodate commercial ammo variations, and then some. Factory rifle designers have no clue which laods teh user will eb feeding the rifle, so they are required by wise design practices to tailer their specs to generic values.

Jumping bullets into the lands has the virtue of keeping pressure spikes less dramatic in magnitude, which is a safety plus that really pleases the factory lawyer squads.

That does not especially hamper accuracy, it just makes BR-type accuracy unlikely; and the methods outlined above for establishing OAL's are valid.

Abandoning BR-type accuracy is not such a great loss, since such accuracy becomes far more prone to disruption by matters like environmental variables. That's why BR shooters tend to reload their loads, with alteratons, between match stages.

Greg
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

When FGMM shoots 1-1/4 from a factory Remmie, but reloads way out beyond mag length shoot 1/2 MOA, I don't believe you can call that a load problem more than a rifle problem.

All I see above regarding how "good" defectively-long throated barrels can shoot are excuses for bad manufacturing inspired as much by chicken-**** beancounters as by the dreaded lawyers.

Don'cha think Savage has lawyers on board too? THEY can build and SELL a decent barrel out of the box.

Specs are specs. Build the throat to SAAMI specs and you have a very good defense against meritless lawsuits from careless/reckless/"I'm assuming all risk for what I do" reloaders who think a bolt gun can and should be run "to the limits of the brass".

I can imagine how the Board Room meeting played out:

Lawyers:
"Build the product to industry-established standards and the only mechanical failures will be from bad ammo or bad materials. We CAN defend the company against lawsuits from consumers to foolishly hot-rod their reloads, and the makers of defective factory ammo would be at fault, not [company X]. The reasonably foreseeable casehead failure from these causes leads to only superficial wounds to anyone who follows the universally-recommended practice of wearing eye protection."

Accountants:
"Holding the tolerances to [SLOPPY throats] saves us $X per unit, or $XX,000.00 per year. These tolerances will avoid X dozen case failure events, of which XX will typically result in a lawsuit. The costs of successfully defending or settling each lawsuit would be $XX,000.00. The added costs of replacing rifles sent back by customers disgruntled by the sloppy tolerances would be $XX,000.00. So, we save $0.55 per rifle by keeping the throats long."

Meanwhile, the marketing and PR people are having kiniptions because they HATE servicing those inquiries from unhappy customers and making excuses for some money-driven decision to deviate from well-known standards for making a rifle right.

Wonder how Savage's decision-making process was driven? It's all a matter of corporate values.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

A little off topic, but how does the normal Savage throat compare to SAAMI specs? Are they notoriously long like Remington's appear to be?

I've never had a Remington barrel before, everything I own is either OEM military or custom cut with a tight chamber and short throat. (Pays to have a hobbyist gunsmith for a dad)

I'm getting a Savage 12 in 204 very soon and I'm curious to know what I should expect. I have a Savage 17 HMR that shoots ragged holes right out of the box with only 60 rounds down the tube.

That rifle I did a break in on the barrel even though it's "only" 17 rimfire, but I figured "What the hell, it's a new gun, why not spend the extra hour and a half doing things right. It can't hurt."
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

it's not cause of the factory barrel, but because it's a Remington. Im Not docking
them or anything but I do know for a fact that there know for there long jumps. I say shoot what ya got and when the barrel dies get a newmone and specify how long of a throat u want.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

With a 30-06 shooting it until the barrel is kaput will be about 4000+ rounds from now. If he can figure out a load that will jump nicely then I'd say keep the barrel.

I hear that some of the VLD's like a decent jump, but another consideration is to calculate what the extended cost of shooting a jumped VLD is vs. a new barrel job and shooting 4000 "cheaper" 168 grainers. It might not be that different of an extended cost, so if he wants to shoot 168's for whatever reason it might make sense financially to just change out the barrel.

I've had good luck jumping Amax's to well under MOA from my 30-06 before I knew anything about seating them to touch. A box of 168 Amax's are like $10 cheaper than a box of 180 VLD's from Berger. That's 400 bucks over a barrel life, not including the minor cost difference in powder (probably less than 20 bucks)
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

It seems many people think "SAAMI", or any book, OAL is a law. Others seem to think seating into the lands automatically delivers "best accuracy". Neither idea is true.

All SAAMI sets is the minimum chamber and throat length, for safety purposes. It's (usually) based on the longest bullet likely to be chambered for the cartridge. The Factories are free to make the throats as long as they see fit, it STILL meets SAAMI standards IF it isn't too short. The diameter of the throat seems to be more important than its length. Book makers list the OAL they used to develop the info they provide, but their throats are not like our's so our best OAL will almost invariably be different.

Few magazine fed sporter rifles shooting off the shelf bullets shoot best with bullets into or even at the lands. How that got started seems to have been from BR shooting but we aren't shooting BR rifles or BR bullets so we DON'T NEED BR methods.

Develop a load and then find the best seating depth. All by experimentation, not by following any "rule" offering a false hope of easy accuracy shortcuts. It just don't work that way.

Good luck finding a factory barrel of any make that allows seating light to medium weight bullets into the lands, and then getting best groups from that method.

Let us know how well it all works out.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

cheap way to get to a spec. you want would be set the barrel back .180 and re ream the chamber.
my savage bbl. with 167 a-max kisses the lands @2.820 the mag will feed 2.843
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BadBot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">cheap way to get to a spec. you want would be set the barrel back .180 and re ream the chamber.
my savage bbl. with 167 a-max kisses the lands @2.820 the mag will feed 2.843 </div></div>

However, the Rem VSS barrels start to taper less than an inch after the barrel shoulder, making that option a bit more difficult.
 
Re: Factory Barrels Stink!

My Sav bbl seems to shoot just fine. Very little headspace too
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