Some of you may have seen my earlier posts about not being happy with the way Fox Ridge cut the chamber on this rifle. The throat was really long, and the cases were stretching quite a bit on the first firing (from shoulder to belt).

Last Saturday I took this thing to the range with a loads using the 250gr Speer and the 225 Ballistic Tip. Previously I had shot some loads with 200 Hornady's, 220 Speer's, and 225 Sierra's, so I had ruled out the shorter/lighter bullets.

Anyway back to Saturday, I started off with the 250's. Most groups were definitely acceptable for me running 1 1/2-2" @ 100 yds. So I took some notes for later loads then started in with the B-Tips. This is where I got real happy. I was only using 1 powder H-380 and had loaded in .5 gr steps. Every load was under 1". I couldn't believe it.

So apparently I made too much out of the chambering job. I would have obviously liked it better if they could have cut that throat a tad shorter and taken a little more care with the reamer, but now at least I can be happy with the barrel and start to enjoy shooting. Sean

[ 04-24-2003, 19:07: Message edited by: LoneEagle ]

I get case stretch in all my encore chambers roughly equal to the barrel to frame gap...more so with hot loads. Unless you spec a throat length by telling the smith what bullets you intend to shoot and or sending a dummy round...you will usually get a long/default/safe throat.
Glad to hear things are working out with the BT's.
Dave

Dave, I am getting .010" Stretch from the belt to the shoulder. with factory ammo. Anyway, the chamber job from Fox Ridge is horrible on this barrel. I am going to keep it but I won't order another barrel from them! The rudeness I had to deal with when I sent the barrel back was enough for me. And I don't think I should have to load these short action rounds longer than a Whelen to get good accuracy. Sean