Savage 243 throat

[Muddly]

Loaded up some 95 grain Nosler ballistic tips and partitions. At an OAL of 2.8 for both, I still had room in the magazine and wasn't into the rifling. My 110E is a 1985 production, and is still on the original barrel. Seems like the throat is rather deep. Like Remington deep. Does make for a NASTY looking round though. Is there an ideal throat lenght for the 243? I'm not a varmint hunter and use 90-100 grain bullets most of the time.

[Stumpkiller]

I don't think there is an "ideal" leade length because of the differences in bullet shape. SAAMI prescribes one.

Attachment 4642

If you can keep a 0.015" jump and fit the magazine it's all good. Longer C.O.L. just means you can fit more powder. ;-)

I have a .260 Rem (.243 up to .264) and I use 2.890" O.A.L. on the 143 gr. Hornady ELD-X. Happily Savage gave enough magazine to get away with that.

[Whynot]

The ideal throat depends on what bullet you're shooting- and on a custom gun you get to specify... otherwise you get what you get. I've had guns where I had to change what bullet I wanted to run because of this. Depending on how much your gun has been shot it could be that you wont get 0.010 away from the rifling- but as long as it shoot good. Some people get tired of hearing it- but 243's do have a lot of throat erosion- and the heavier bullets you are shooting don't help. On my 243 I had to keep adjusting the COAL - a lot faster than I would have thought possible. I was trying to make 105 hpbt go as fast as possible- but even when I had to jump them it still shot pretty good-- until one day it didn't.

[Muddly]

I hear ya. When this tube goes, I'm going with a 6mm SLR.Everything the 243 is, but ( theoretically)longer barrel life.
I shoot slow fire and don't always use my hunting loads in order to preserve things as much as I can.
I've chased rifling before. Had a horrible overbored 303 with a 2 groove barrel. It slugged .303-.318! After 2000 rounds of various reloads and 1500 rounds of Greenwood and Batley MKVII ball ( cordite) fired with imprudent speed, I quickly had to chase the rifling up the barrel. Still shot 4 inch groups at 100 yards. Her throat was a solid 2 inches deep...

[Zero333]

Unfortunately the Ideal Freebore is bullet specific. 2 different 105 gr bullets can require 2 very different freebore length.

Say.... The no longer made 105 Amax would need around a 0.125" freebore in the 243win to kiss the rifling at a 2.800" coal...
While the 105 Berger VLD will kiss the rifling at 2.800" coal with 0.75"ish freebore.
And optimally we want those 2 bullets seated farther out than 2.800" so the bearing surface/boattail junction is not below the neck/shoulder junction of the case.