12 LV chamber

I am picking up a 223 model 12 LV (cabelas) Monday and am interested to know if the chamber is a 223 or 556. Has anyone been successful getting reamer prints from Savage? I know CZ and some other manufacturers sell 223's but say are safe to shoot 556 rounds out of them. Of course they label them 223 for marketing reasons and chamber as 556 for safety reasons. If the 12 LV has a true 223 chamber I would like to know it. I suppose the literature with the gun might say. I appreciate if anyone has insight into this.

Really difficult to give you a simple answer.
Savage has been putting in much longer throats than most "SAAMI chamber drawings" for a long time. So if it isn't what it is, can it be what it isn't??:cool:

The chambers are the same anyway, it's the throat that is different. Mine was listed as "223 Rem" but had a throat longer than any commercial "5.56 NATO" reamer print.

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Originally Posted by darkker

Really difficult to give you a simple answer.
Savage has been putting in much longer throats than most "SAAMI chamber drawings" for a long time. So if it isn't what it is, can it be what it isn't??:cool:

The chambers are the same anyway, it's the throat that is different. Mine was listed as "223 Rem" but had a throat longer than any commercial "5.56 NATO" reamer print.

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Beware 12 LV owners....I got my12 LV today. It has a 223 chamber and it would not be a wise idea to use 5.56 bullets in it. If I chamber the NATO round it would be jammed into the lands of my rifle about .023 which is a potential pressure hazard. I checked the chamber depth to the lands with a Hornady comparator which measures off the ogive. Length using a empty case touchings the lands with a 55 gn FMJ boat tail bullet = 1.955". This bullet was pulled from the American Eagle 5.56 cartridge measured below.

Ogive length as measured with Hornady Comparator:

American Eagle NATO 5.56.................1.978"
Union Metallic Cartridge 223 .......1.939"
PMC 223 ................................1.937"

Any 12LV owners that bought their rifles at Cabela's using 5.56 ammo in their rifle? I suppose there could be more than one reamer for this model but I really doubt that. If you have one of these rifles I would look into this if you intend to shoot 5.56 bullets.

Well there you go.
My rifle had a very long throat, as did all of my 10fp's.

5.56 bullets are the same numbers as the 223, btw.

I noticed throats were longer the faster the twist. LRPV 223 7tw had the longest throat.