Wouldn't you know it!
I just answered a question posed by Dougk regarding the long (or Weatherby style) throats on most factory Varminters these days! He posed the question on a thread regarding XR-100's vs. Rem. 700 VSSF's.
I relayed to him how I had not been able to get a "normal" Varmint bullet anywhere near the leades of the rifling on ANY of the MANY Varmint Rifles I have bought in the last several years! And I stand by that record for those many Rifles! I have been able to get very good to excellent accuracy from these Rifles though, even as my bullets are jumping sometimes several hundredths of an inch before contacting rifling!
Well WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT! My theory on long throats being the policy of the factory folks held true - right up UNTIL today when I began load development on my latest acquisition - one of the new Remington XR-100's in caliber 223 Remington. And now just this afternoon with 52 grain Berger MEF's I was VERY easily able to jam the rifling with these bullets! In fact the base of the 52 Bergers once seated is actually below the base of the neck of the 223 Lapua cases when I am jumping just .004" (four thousandths of an inch) to the rifling (according to my Sinclair Bullet Seating Depth Tool)!
I would then have to describe the throat on this new XR-100 as SHORT!
There goes my theory of modern Rifle manufacturing policies regarding throat lengths being overly long!
Anyway this is the first Rifle in about the last 15 or so new factory guns I have bought and been able to contact rifling with and still keep one calibers worth of the bullet in the case!
I will let you know how this Remington shoots as soon as I can get a windless day to do load testing and barrel break in.
Have any of you found the factory Rifles to have universally (or almost universally!) long throats these days?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Dale,

I am still waiting to get some weather cooperation to make it over to the range to test out this new ADL in 223 I picked up for a song....

But I took some of my loaded 52 grain Speer HPs loads.. ( I shoot a lot of those and the 50 grain TNT bullets)....I chambered one and then two and then three... Each time they would not chamber....

Same as your XR 100, the throat on this thing is ridiculously short!

I am going to leave it alone, since this rifle is being earmarked for 46 grain HPs and down for bullets...It will be pretty much a blue Dot powder rifle....

But I have to admit.. if it wasn't.. it would be over at the gunsmith getting that throat reamed out to accept magazine length cartridges even tho I almost always single shoot my 223s...

This would serve as a walking varminter, but I have a Winchester featherweight in 223, with a Weaver 2 x 7 rimfire scope on it for that purposes... and it is a little tack driver and a half... so that base is covered....

cheers
seafire

Seafire/B17G: It sounds like Remington ordered some short throated 223 reamers here of late! I was checking my recently purchased Remingtons and I have an all stainless 700 VLS in 223 that was a limited run a couple years ago and it had a "long" throat! Dittoes on a nifty little Remington 700 Classic in 223 that I bought a few years ago also.
Come on Remington - the little things get noticed out here!
Well at least they all shoot well for me!
Long live Remington!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Maybe Remington is actually using "sporter" 223 reamers now instead of "Military" specs reamers. The mil spec is throated for 69gr bullets. Sporter specs usually are for a 40-50gr bullet.
Or the other thing is they forgot to cut the throat in a seperate operation, I used to have a 300 mag that had no throat from Rem.

DuaneinND: Good to hear from you. Did that throatless 300 Mag give you extreme pressures when you fired it?
Yikes!
Come on Remington you can do better than that!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

VarmintGuy:

My XR-100 is the same way it has been the only 22cal rifle that I have not had to load the bullets out so far. The first Remington varmint rifle I had was a blue heavy barrel with a wood stock. I would load the cartridges long to touch the rifling and cuss if I ejected a shell without firing it first. The bullet would stick in the barrel and the powder would fall out into the action. I wish I had kept that rifle it was sure accurate, but not any more than my XR-100 .223

VG:

A trip to the range today, in the pouring down Oregon rain! did prove one thing.....

The New ADL has no problems with accuracy... will probably post some pictures of the results soon.. on another thread...But it will be a good rifle for close in shots.... under 100 yds, due to mounting a 3 x 9 scope on it.. but the rifle has the potential for 300 yds easily on beer can sized ground squirrels....

As a side note... Tried any Reloader 10 powder?

Tried some today with 40 grain Sierra HPs, 50 grain TNTs and 52 grain Speer HPS.... I HIGHLY recommend checking out some of it.... I don't think you will be disappointed... proved even more accurate that Benchmark and Varget... if that is possible....

Cheers
seafire

Yes it did- however when I went to the chrongraph it took less powder to reach the projected velocity. The downside was with the bigger/longer bullets- so I gave it 1/2" of throat for the 200 gr bullets.
I have a 223 reamer with no throat, just the tapered leade which works great- the problem with Rem is they usually don't have any leade angle either when they forget the throat.

I have a Tikka T3 "Varmint Synthetic" in .308 I bought about 2 years ago.

Hornady 150 grain Interlocks, seated to barely fit the magazine, are about .025 off the lands. I recently shot some 1 inch 10-shot groups with them.

Nosler 165 grains Ballistic Tips, seated to barely fit the magazine, are about .125 off the lands. I have not tried shooting these bullets at that seating depth. When seated .025 off the lands they won't fit the magazine but 10-shot groups run about 1.2 inches.

I have yet to find a factory load that shoots better than 5 shots into 2 inches.

The new Stevens Mod. 200 in 22-250 has a really short throat. It is of some wonder why the currently built 22-250s don't have a longer throat and faster twist emulating really good features of most .223. roger

That's great news on that short throat. If Remington keeps that up Dan Cowen may loose a little of my business. But I'm sure that isn't going to happen soon. Got rid of the J-lock now shortening throats? Maybe Remington is starting to learn something from the customer???????? May be a new Remington in my future yet.

Jay Johnson: If you can BELIEVE this? I actually saw Dan Cowen at the Puyallup Gunshow on SUNDAY December 18th!
You could have knocked me over with a feather!
We had a great catch up time there!
I had only seen him at the WAC shows one other time in the 35 years I have known him and that of course was on a Saturday!
I may be back out in your neighborhood soon as my mother who lives in the Renton Highlands is recuperating from heart surgery.
More later
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Send me an e-mail if you come out it would be great to see you.

I know many are not big Savage fans around here, but when your funding your way through grad school....

They have very short throats it seems in all of their late version rifles. I have been very surprised at the "out of the box" accuracy of these. I have an '06 in 110 that shoots 168 TSX at around .5" (took a while to get the load just right--but no complaints.) My partner has a 22-250, 22-250AI, 223AI and a 223 that all shot around .3--nothing has been done to them but the two AI are rechambered. One of them is older (the 223) and it seems to have a very long throat.....

IV

IdahoVandal: I give the Savage owners a hard time only because I know they are such good shooting Rifles and your average Savage Rifle shooter is a Remington hater! So be it.
I have shot right along side some wonderfully accurate Savage Rifles both at the range and in the field.
Long live Savage Arms!
I was at the Varmint Hunters Convention in Pierre, South Dakota and I saw a wonderfully accurate Savage Varminter in caliber 222 Remington Magnum winning the factory division of the shoot out there!
Yeah I know Savage never made a Varminter in 222 Remington Magnum but the guy from Sharps Shooters Supply who owned and was shooting this Rifle got special dispensation to enter his rechambered 223 into the factory class.
As I recall he won that event or placed very high.
If the Savage folks wanted to sell twice as many Rifles all they would have to do is morph their present Rifles into even slightly more aesthetic looking "classic" Rifles.

Jay Johnson: I will get hold of you and let you know the dates I will be around. I got a call yesterday to do a jewelry escort out on the coast on the 21st of January. $250.00 cash for 5 hours work! Thats most of a new Varmint scope for me right there no sweat!
The wind is just HOWLING here tonight and it looks like I won't get to shoot again tomorrow!
It was dead calm all early December and the day I got home (the 18th) with a new Rifle and need to test loads it began to blow! It has blown hard every day since!
Sheesh. Do I have the luck or what?
See you soon and Happy New Year to you and Dalene.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I have only seen a few short throated factory chambered rifles.

One is a Savage 112 BVSS 223 (had darn near a min spec chamber too).

A Remington 700 BDL in 257 Roberts.

And a Remington Sendero SF in 7mmSTW. All of the above rifles shot very well to outstanding.

Mike.

Seafire/B17G: Thanks for the heads up on the Re-10 powder. It has been filed in my loading log.
Also any particulars on your group sizes with the new ADL in 223?
Yikes on your rain situation there in Oregon!
I have a ton of relatives (and I mean that literally - they are big people!) in Oregon and I think they have had enough rain to last them a long while!
Send some of that rain - if you can - down to Oklahoma and Texas!
They need it!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

VG<

I have the targets.. and took some pictures of them with my... I mean my wife's... new digital camera ( that I thought she needed for a christmas present so her husband could borrow it!).....

As soon as I figure out how to transfer the pics from the camera unto the computer....

Another powder that surprised me in load development.... with "el cheapo" 55 grain Winchester SPs from Cabelas... was 25 grains of IMR 3031.....

As soon as I get that figured out, I'll PM then to ya!

cheers
( wet and soggy) Seafire

quote:

Originally posted by bartsche:
The new Stevens Mod. 200 in 22-250 has a really short throat. It is of some wonder why the currently built 22-250s don't have a longer throat and faster twist emulating really good features of most .223. roger

Roger:

I can't say as to the short throats.....

But as far as faster twists like the 223 from Savage has... I think it has to do with Varmint bullets in 22 caliber...

Since most of us are shooting varmints with them.. the 22.250 is just too hot for a lot of varmint bullets....

I have already learned with my 223 Savage 12 BVSS that you can't shoot Hornady's SPSX bullets unless you throttle them down to about 2500 fps or less....They were vaporizing right out of the barrel.. I called Hornady and they asked what my load was.. I told them and they said that the bullet was coming out of my barrel at about 270,000 rpms and the SPSXs were designed for a maximum of 180,000 rpms or so....

I am sure most shooters wouldn't figure that out that far... and it would not sell guns very well with a lot of complaints that : 'the bullet will never even hit the target".....

So they have to keep it simple for the nimrods of the world....

just my thoughts on the subject...


I have also found that my Savage 12 BVSS doesn't shoot a lot of loads that shoot great in one in 12 and one in 14 twists very well.....

I got a call from the gunsmith today, to pick up my Ruger 77 mk 2 that I had redone.. after getting the Savage, I took the one in 8 twist stainless steel barrel off of the 223 that it was one, put back on the original 223 blued barrel on that... and had an extra 243 Ruger in stainless that I horsetraded for, that had a shot out barrel... but the price was right....

So I had the 223 stainless PacNor barrel with the one in 8 twist, put on that rifle.. and rechambered it to a 22.250... to shoot the 69, 75, and 80 grain match bullets thru it...

I suspect that it will play havoc on a lot of varmint bullets that are smaller... I was just trying to calculate the rpms of a 40 grain ballistic tip at 4200 fps and a one in 8 twist.....I am sure it would end up being something in the 400,000 rpm range....Talk about "DRILLING" a prairie dog!

Will keep you posted on the results after I get to play with it some...
cheers
seafire

Roger, I've got a Savage 12BVSS that shoots those discontinued Hornady 60 grain "Barrier" bullets quite nicely at circa 3400 FPS over a load of IMR 7383 in .22-250 with 12" twist. That's probably about as long a bullet as it'd handle well, though.