308 Ashbury - tight leade

[kenvandenberg]

Bought an 308 WIN Ashbury a month ago and am having problems with extracting a loaded round,
using 178gr ELD-Match seated to 2.800 they chamber OK but have to pound on bolt handle to extract them
there are 1/8" long scratches all around bullet about 0.200 after case mouth.

Is this normal for a new Savage barrel?

The ELD-Match bullets measured 0.3083, tried 175gr SMK (0.3080) seated to 2.800 and they did the same thing but easier to extract.

Tried sizing the bullets to 0.3075 which eliminated the problem, but don't fancy having to resize each bullet!.

thanks
Kenny

[JASmith]

Your bullets are engaging the lands. Seat them at least an eigth-inch deeper.

Can’t speak to what is normal for a Savage chamber, but the marks tell you what your chamber wants for a max length for a particular bullet.

[Robinhood]

Beat me to it.

[scootergisme]

Check head space too. If you want to shoot a cartridge with more bullet run out, you may have to have it re-chambered with a long throat reamer.

[charlie b]

Interesting. My 12BVSS in .308 takes 175 and 180 SMK's at 2.80" easily.

I checked my throat by lightly sizing a case neck, inserting a bullet and chambering. Then remove and measure the length. Mine was right at 2.86" with the SMK's. 168 AMax and 178ELD had to be seated a little shorter.

[CFJunkie]

I had two .308 Savages arrive from the factory with chambers short enough to be tight with Federal Premium Gold Match 168 SMK factory ammo that is usually set for a 2.795 O.A.L.
One was tight enough to cause me to seat the factory ammo back another 0.005 to get the bolt to close easily.
Sounds like your new .308 is even shorter than those.
The problem with my two rifles went away after about 200 - 300 rounds.
Incidentally, they are my most accurate .308s and now will allow seating deeper than 2.850 with 168 SMKs and both have over 3,600 rounds through their barrels.

I have also noticed that my newest Savages, 2 in 6.5mm Creedmoor, also came with chambers that are right around the SAAMI 2.810 O.A.L. recommendations but weren't so short that they had problems with factory ammo.
They too, after more than 2,000 rounds allow seating much deeper than SAMMI 2.810 recommendations.

My original Savage .308 (2009 vintage) had a chamber that was .080 deeper than SAAMI.
After 2013, all my Savages had tighter chambers and I have been pleased that I wasn't giving away 0.080 of barrel erosion before I took the first shot.

[zloe]

Yep. My experience with factory savage barrels has been the lands are difficult to reach.

[tobnpr]

SAAMI spec chamber... what #2 and #3 said...

If you need more freebore, take a "dummy" round to a riflesmith and have him throat the barrel to fit.