I have done it on a few solid frame barrels,making them fit a takedown receiver. the differance is in the barrels. Basically you are removing metal where the barrel meets the receiver,and where the chamber end butts up against the loading ramp area.I never actually measured the amount but it was minimal maybe.005. when you do this you are tightening the chamber toward the bolt face creating less headspace. i have only did this on rimmed cases and had no trouble closing the bolt on the barrels.Don
Well put, Don. Whether or not headspace is effected enough to matter is dependent on how much one has to remove from the barrel to allow it to snug up hand tight. I had one that took a helacious amount of steel removal to achieve that (mainly due to the receiver face being atrociously out of square and needing to be trued before barrel surgery took place). After all that, headspace was frahundtsed and the mix-matching of bolts began. (Could've just deepened the chamber, a .303, but that would've meant renting/buying a reamer. By then I had a collection of bolts and it was relatively easy to select one that was short enough, thanks to the Savage protocol of using different length bolts at final assembly to mix-and-match for achieving tolerable headspace.)
John, the rim is the determining factor. Light strikes probably due to gunked up internals. That, or someone substituted a too short bolt sometime along the way without confirming headspace and the firing pin simply can't quite reach far enough.
