Yes - big difference. When S/A cartridges were offered in long-actions, the long action still used a short-action length magazine. The machine cut in the bottom of the action to accept the magazine was shorter for the short-action magazine. I know a few have come up with work arounds for this in the past, basically making an adapter of sorts to allow the use of a S/A magazine box in the long-action, but one of those folks will need to chime in with details as my memory isn't that good.