I have purchased an Adams and Bennett 24 inch bbl chambered in 358 Win for my Savage Scout, currently with a 20 inch bbl and chambered in 7-08. Headspacing is supposed to be simple because of the Savage barrel nut design, but I would like to confirm this and the procedure with someone who has actually done it.

Can one just close the bolt on the go, no-go guages and tighten the barrel so both work and then tighten the lock nut, or does the tightness of the lock nut affect headspace? Can I use a 308 Win set of guages instead of the 358 Win guages?

I also have a Savage 116 in 300 WSM and am sorely tempted to get another A&B 358 bbl and make a 358 WSM by reaming it to those specs. However, the pilot will be too short to enguage the bore fully before it starts cutting, so this may not be too easy to accomplish. Does anyone sell long pilots on their reamers for this purpose?

thanks!

Sabot, I've swapped a bunch of 110 barrels.
You dont want it to close on the NO-GO.
Screw the barrel down on the chambered GO gauge
& snug the nut. Open the bolt & reclose it,
you should fell slight resistance. Open bolt
& put in the NO-GO, it should NOT close on it.
Some pro can explain it better, so hang on.
Now then Ya want to sell the 7/08 bbl?
LMK
flinter6 out

The 308 and 358 win use the same gauges. When I changed a 110 to 280 rem. I turned the barrel in untill the go gauge hit the bolt face,then I snugged the nut and checked to see if a round would load ok and then I torqued the nut.

You kind of want to watch how much slop there is in the thread. What I do is run a cartridge fired with a mild load through my dies, with the die hitting the shell holder. I use it as the gauge to set the barrel from. If it is a match grade barrel, there has never been any slop in the threads, so I back off the barrel about an eight of a turn. This gives "a couple of thou" space. With factory threads, the nut will tighten the threads enough to give you that space.

I have also used a new factory round to use as a gauge, but sometimes you end up backing the barrel out a little later, to match your dies. No biggie, but it's another step.

If you aren't a reloader, the go and no-go gauges are the best way to go. HTH, Dutch.

Gentlemen -

Thanks so much, I am encouraged and will proceed.

Flinter - Sorry, but I plan to keep the 7-08 so I can switch bbls for different applications. The 2 bbls cover just about everything IMHO.