New Savage 11VT .308 need advice

[yobuck]

ive been loading all sorts of cartridges for over 60 years and never owned any gauges for seating depth except a good set of calipers.
i do have gauges for determining "proper case legnth" for my cases many of which go into custom chambers. they can be purchased reasonably at sinclairs. for now id be using published data for the case legnth. as for seating depth of the bullet just take an empty unprimed case and partially seat a bullet. then close the bolt on it to complete the seating. if you then measure the overall legnth and
set your die to seat it 30 thou deeper you should be fine. check it by smoking the ogive of the bullet with a match or using a sharpie.
rechamber it and check for rifeling marks. you can experiment till you get the accuracy results you like by going more or less deeper
with the seating.
make a dummy for each different bullet you will be using for setting up your die in future.
i wouldnt be using brass fired in another gun unless it was full legnth resized and tried in your chamber before loading.
the heavy bolt lift was caused by pressure. the hard closing was caused by poorly fitted rounds to the chamber which could have
caused both situations.
id be loading some of your own with properly sized brass for that gun. then follow the guidelines of a good loading manual
as for powder charges.

[overthere]

Can I measure throat depth by loading up dummy rounds or is there an easier way than buying a guage?

To add to yobuck's suggestion for measuring max length, take a piece of brass that has been fired in your rifle and *do not* resize it. Instead take a pair of pliers and carefully make the case mouth smaller until it will start holding a bullet with some neck tension. Then seat the bullet very long by pushing it in with your fingers, put the dummy round in the receiver and close the bolt. When the bullet hits the lands it will be pushed into the case. Then carefully open the bolt and measure the results.

If you try to do this with a piece of brass that has been either neck sized or full sized you will have a very difficult time closing the bolt since the neck tension is quite high once the brass is resized.

[tammons]

I just cut a slice down each side of the neck with a dremel of a new piece of brass.

[thirty06]

I just cut a slice down each side of the neck with a dremel of a new piece of brass.
I do the same thing only with a sized piece of brass.

[jerry shaw]

There are two likely conditions.

First, the barrel could be headspaced improperly. That's not likely. If the bolt closes easily on an empty unfired properly sized case, your headspace is probably ok. Best to check it with a headspace gauge. If that comes out ok, then move to the next option.

The chamber could be cut with a short throat. This isn't common. BUT, some barrels come out that way. I have a Savage Palma. It has a short throat. It was cut with a Palma 95 reamer. Those throats are shorter than a SAAMI-spec .308 WIN chamber. It will feed factory rounds, sometimes, but it doesn't want to do it. It's really unlikely that a normal production barrel came out with that same throat dimension, but anything is possible.

If the throat is short, you're not going to be able to correct it yourself (without resorting to a do-it-yourself rechambering job).

My best advice would be to send the rifle to Savage. They should be able to help. That is what I would do.

Good luck.