Long Remington Throats in .308 Heavy barrels?

[Dingus]

I've been seeing references to Remington's 700 heavy barreled guns in .308 as having long throats, making it difficult to reach the lands. I'd been thinking of buying one as a starter gun for target shooting, as opposed to going the the expense of building one. Plan was to shoot the barrel out, then rebarrel. Figured the .308 would be a good place to start. What are your experiences?

I was trying to determine which model to start with, with shooting out to 600 yds is possible here. Would like to stay with the 700, as that is what I am most familiar with. Then I saw the references to the throat length and difficulty reaching the lands with match bullets, and it kinda brought me up short.

So, truth or fiction?

Dingus Americanus

 

[milanuk]

The one I had certainly did - the throat on that thing would have made Roy Weatherby proud. That was a few (7 or 8) years ago, though. Somehow I doubt their lawyers have loosened their grip much in the intervening years.

The good news is... the .308 is pretty much one of the least fussy cartridges about seating depth that I've came across. Unless you are running long/heavy bullets or loading for slow-fire only, just seat 'em to magazine length first and have at it - odds are they'll shoot very well anyways. Seating long to reach the lands might be a disappointment, not the least of which may be your bullet falling out of the case before you get there (as was the situation with 155s in mine), but you can still seat the bullets long to free up some case capacity and get good accuracy without being jammed in the lands - not a bad thing at all.

HTH,

Monte

 

[shepheard]

Maybe you can go with a Savage. They are real shooters out of the box. I can touch the lands and still load from the mag.

 

[Dingus]

Maybe you can go with a Savage. They are real shooters out of the box. I can touch the lands and still load from the mag.

I actually already have a Savage, with a SSS trigger and recoil lug. I bought it as a Sierra 7mm/08 (Savages' "mountain rifle"), then it became a 6mm BR (1-14twist), purchased a 1-12 twist 6mm BR (as of yet uninstalled) and currently it wears a SSS .250 Savage barrel (bought used, but unfired by me). In the eight years I've owned it, I've shot less than 75 rounds (total) through it's various incarnations. Have a lot of money sunk into it, that I'll mostly likely not ever get back. Still don't like it enough to put a permanent scope on it.

Accurate, yes. Fun to tinker with, yes. Fun to shoot, not so much. But I keep trying to find the magic. So far it eludes me.

Dingus Americanus

 

[Rustystud]

Remington w/ long throats..

Over the last 6 years I have had many Remingtons (non shooters) sent to me that were relatively new guns. Most had a common denominator "way too long throats". These have ranged from model 7s to 700s. I have had 3 5R milspec rifles with over .100" jump from SAAMI spec. Several had had throat that were not co axially aligned with the bore. You know it is bad when you have to drive a chamber cast out with a steel rod and hammer because the front of the neck and throat are undercut.

I know their reamers are ground off a center and the throats are both physically co-axial and concentric to their axis. I also know that they are ground within .001" of SAAMI spec. Therefore it means one of two things their are following the chambering with a throating reamer or polishing their chaibers with a flex hone.

From experience I can tell you a throatng reamer cuts throats like the steel is butter. If they are not co- axially aligned and the propper pilot used the can and will cut an out of alignment throat.


I had a personal Remington Model 7 in 308 Win., It had fired less than 300 rounds and the throat was .137" longer than SAAMI spec. I replaced the barrel with a custom barrel and offered to sent the factory barrel back to Remington. I e-mailed their Senior Engineer and talked to him about the barrel. He has some associate e-mail me and I told him I was not looking for another Remington barrel and he declined for me to send the barrel back to them for their review. I have sinced machined off half the chamber and tendon end off where it can be inspected without a bore scope. I show it to Remington owners who are having throat issues with factory barrels.

Nat Lambeth