Recent posts by myself and others have gotten me obsessed in figuring out what kind of throat my savage 111 trophy hunter really has. My confusion first arose when reading the Hornady specs in their manual--they tested a "short throat" wildcat which I believe was strictly based on the early 6.5 284 winchester wildcat. The nosler book, on the other hand, lists their measurements based on "true" norma standards--which among other things includes a COL of 3.310 vs. Hornady's listed 2.80. That's a huge difference when you're talkin distance off lands (except maybe in an AR).

Now Savage's in general tend to be "generous" in their throats, but among other things the magazine seems to accommodate COL's that at their maximum would have even a high BC boattail almost falling out of the neck of any 6.5 284 case I know of! The real problem seems to be that most cases--all that I know of--are of the 2.16-2.17 range (derived I assume from the original winchester parent case the norma I believe was wildcatted from).

I'm guessing that Savage's chambers are made to "true" norma specs as outlined in the Nosler book. I will try to verify this from Savage itself. If this is true--using the existing cases that I know of (Lapua,Nosler and Hornady, among others) that are 2.17 or under I don't believe it is possible to get a bullet seated very close to the lands.

I could also be totally crazy and mistaken on this. : )