Tight Bore barrels and 30-06 with heavies

[cypriss32]

Im building a 30-06 rifle for my collection. I have had one a few years and sold it like a dumb ass. I ended up getting a tight bore barrel. Its a .298 bore. I have NEVER used a tight 30cal barrel. I was wondering if I will have any issues shooting the longer heavier higher BC 30cal bullets threw? Should I trade it for a standard bore barrel?

 

[milotrain]

Disclaimer: I have not shot a tight bore nor done any load development on it. I do own an Obermeyer .298 .30 cal barrel which is going on a 700 receiver as soon as I can get around to building it.

This thread would suggest that you will not see much pressure difference, if any at all.
http://www.snipershide.com/shooting...ale-two-guns-tight-bore-vs-standard-bore.html

In general a .298 .30 cal barrel was built for Palma shooting while using issued ammo. It was thought that a tighter bore would help stabilize bullets of less quality than the high quality bullets we handload now. For this reason German Salazar seems to think there is no benefit to running a tight bore .30 cal. However, Obermeyer still bores his .30 cal barrels to .298 and he has forgotten more about what makes an accurate barrel than all of most will ever know.

Due to the above information I would expect that a .298 bore will not give you noticeably better accuracy with quality bullets, but may help you out with issued ammo, FMJ bullets or other less than ideally constructed bullets. I suspect there is no reason to search out a .298 but if you get one from a reputable maker (Obermeyer, Kreiger, etc) then it should shoot very well and use typical reloading data. Of course safety would suggest that you start as much as 1 to 2 grains lighter on all your recipes if you are translating over from data collected with a .300 bore barrel.