Freebore length?

[big honkin jeep]

I shoot a factory barreled Savage so this may be useful, maybe not. For my pet load I load with my bullets touching the lands by using a neck sizing die, loading a little long, and letting the lands finish seating the bullet. I've found it's hard to get more consistent than that and have been able to get some fantastic accuracy doing it. My 700s all seem to have come with longer freebore and I cant seem to replicate this with them and still feed from the mag. It seems to me just as a personal preference I prefer a shorter freebore so my bullets will reach the lands over a longer one.

[Robinhood]

Freebore is not the same as leade/throat.

[yobuck]

Freebore is not the same as leade/throat.

Maybe a technical description is needed in order to clear up some of our minds on the issue?

[Nor Cal Mikie]

Call it what you want, if you can't reach the lands from the start, what are you going to do after 75,100 or 150 rounds fired???
And you may be surprised at how fast the throat/lands move forward.
Go short. You can always go longer.
Go long and you'll need a re chamber to reach the lands.
Plan ahead.

[gbflyer]

Call it what you want, if you can't reach the lands from the start, what are you going to do after 75,100 or 150 rounds fired???
And you may be surprised at how fast the throat/lands move forward.
Go short. You can always go longer.
Go long and you'll need a re chamber to reach the lands.
Plan ahead.

I subscribe to that philosophy also. I had Manson build my 6.5 Creedmoor reamer with a .169 free bore. I can fit just about any bullet in a 2.8 mag, it will creep out longer all on its own.

Having said all that, the most consistent rifle in my collection has a chamber that I cannot get within .200 of the lands when loaded at magazine length. It just doesn’t care, the hole on the target just gets bigger. Lots of different barrel juju out there

[nksmfamjp]

Take the shortest bullet you will shoot. Seat the bullet so the bearing surface is just seated to the base of the neck. That is what you want roughly for oal of a round when bullet is touching the lands, unless you had a magazine to shorten that. You want your bullet seated to this position when it is touching the lands. In the end, you may jam it or seat as far back as 0.1” off, but normally I find 0.02-0.03” works pretty well. I won’t jam a hunting load.

Also, measure the OD of the loaded neck. Ideally, your chamber neck will be 0.001-0.005” bigger than your loaded round....if you won’t use the same brass and it’s neck thickness varies....like Win brass, you will want to start at plus 0.003”.

Find a gunsmith who is talking your language.....talk about your reloading plan, neck diameters and how you want freebore set to a loaded round sample. If that goes well, likely you will get what you want.

The warning signs are “you dont need that”, “I don’t have that”, “that’s not what the experts use”....guys that have what you want are saying I have these options, I’ve done this before, I can do that, what about this.... Of course, you should listen for sound logic and consider changing your plan, but...

[Robinhood]

Maybe a technical description is needed in order to clear up some of our minds on the issue?

I was hoping you could provide that. I just read it on a PTG print

[daved20319]

Thanks for all the responses, guys. Considering my application and use, I'm going to stick with SAAMI spec. Will likely be ordering a barrel today, later.

Dave