i have read lots of threads on here about this, and thought i was doing it the best way possible, but ran into a glitch. On the advice that i gleaned on here i decided that go/no go gauges were the way to do my headspacing so i bought them. i have a heavy barreled .308 that shoots the legs off of flies and i wanted a smaller lighter counterpart that shot the same reload that i use. so the new one i set up with the go/no go gauges. the go goes. the no go just barely no goes. if i chamber one of my pet loads the bullet is pressed into the shell as the bolt closes(which requires quite a bit of pressure)
on my other gun i worked up that load to have the bullet sit maybe 1 or 2 1000ths off the lands. on this one it is obviously way past the beginning of the rifling. my question… can i headspace the new barrel to my ammo? can i load up a dummy round with no powder or primer to overall length, then set barrel 1/1000th off the bullet like my other savage?
can the chambers be so far off as to make that not safe?


if so, i might just try compressing each round as i chamber it. i don't want to have to have two separate .308 loads, and the one i shoot now has developed over years. i will not change it.

any advice/suggestions?

tim