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I am piecing together a Savage 300WM & on order is a Shilen Select Match 26" barrel. I was told I need to send in a few dummy rounds to figure the free bore needed. I plan to shoot from 168-208amax so they recommended a longer throat to accommodate the bigger bullets. I have always based seating lengths on the lands provided but dont really know where to start with a custom throat. I realize SAAMI has OAL at 3.340 & AICS mags can load 3.625". Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
A lot will depend upon wether you intend using it as a single feed or as a magazine fed gun, especially with the factory magazine.
This information will be removing some of the choices you have.
I will eventually use CDI's DBM bottom metal that uses AICS magazines, but to start I will use factory magazines. I'm thinking on making some dummy rounds loaded at 3.500" to ensure good clearance in AICS mags and call it good, unless anyone recommends different?
Thanks.
Thats probably a pretty good place to start. At least you're giving yourself enough room to chase the lands if you need to.
if your going to use the mag then id suggest you seat your dummys to .010-.015 from max mag length so like Hotolds said you can chase the lands...also like yobuck said a lot depends...and the biggest factor is what the riffle is going to like...if it dont like the hornady bullets you may have to shoot bergers which will seat longer to touch the lands so if your going to feed from the mag id suggest picking 3 bullets and finding a seating depth that will work for all 3 bullets and also keep in mind that a 208g bullet is a lot longer than a 168g bullet so id also suggest narrowing you bullet weight choice a little...like 190 to 210..or..168 to 190.
is the riffle going to be used for hunting short range or long range? or a long range target riffle?
I will mainly use it for long range target use with some mid-range hunting. I understand narrowing the bullet weight range but if I load the 208 Amax to 3.500" (0.125" clearance in mag) I feel like that would allow for some lighter weights like 175 grainers to be loaded relatively close to the lands? Kind of splitting the difference? Thanks for you help.
thats probably your best option is to spit the difference if its a duel porpoise riffle.