Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Chamber Differences

So I have a new to me 1975 Remington 700 C Grade in 30/06. I also have a 1979 Remington 700 BDL in same chambering that I bought new way back when. I've handloaded for the BDL since I've had it and my COL length for 150gr bullets have always been in the 3.30" neighborhood and often 3.33" just under the prescribed 3.34" max.

Now this morning I just started doing a bullet seating exercise for the C Grade and the 150gr Sierra boattail can't go more that 3.23" COL; 150gr Hornady Spire Pt at 3.25"; and a 180gr Sierra Pro flat base at 3.26".
Now the differences at 0.11", 0.09" and 0.08" don't look great on paper, but I guess I'm used to those bullets sticking out more for my old BDL. I tried chambering loads for the BDL into the C Grade and no dice. That C Grade has a relatively short throat I guess.

Anyone else run into this? I may have some compressed powder in similar loads for the C grade or will experiment with other powders.

The more rifles I have,the more I find how each one is so different.Some are similar,and some are really different.

I have a herd of 308's and a number of the chambers differ in several ways. That's just for the brass before bullet seating comes into play.

Used to have a pair of 270's, and neck sized everything. Cartridges used in A would chamber in B, but not the other way around. Was not a COL issue, as bumping the shoulders would rectify things.

So I tried chambering empty brass from the BDL into the C Grade. It was difficult to close the bolt, but I could - I did this for an empty reload and an empty factory case. A loaded round from the other rifle couldn't get chambered at all; a factory round could.

So does "bumping" the shoulder mean setting the resizing die down more? Does this over work the brass? I just sized them, but I suppose I could do run them through again.

Over working the brass re headspace is relative to the chamber it goes into. If you size brass just enough to chamber smoothly in the rifle it is for then you're not over doing it.

It sounds like your best bet is to load for each rifle.
Why mess with what works for the BDL.

It sounds like the BDL will take the C's hand me downs.
So new brass for the C.
And some way to tell one from the other...

Thanks OldMan. That's sort of what I decided to do. I'll let each rifle speak for itself load-wise. I am anxious to see how that C-Grade shoots......it sure is a sharp looking rifle. Hope is shoots as good as it looks.

You might use different brands of brass for each rifle to make it easier to distinguish which is for each rifle. Or noticeably different bullets.

Not a bad idea SotG. Right now, my plan was to use completely different reloading boxes. For the C Grade I have bright orange boxes from Natchez, and the BDL I use either clear plastic or old factory boxes with styrofoam. The bright orange boxes are labeled "C Grade". We'll see how it shoots and with what bullets. If I can use noticeably different bullets then......thanks!

Or use a Sharpe to mark the loaded cartridges for one.
Sounds like you have a good summer project.

Not a big deal having dedicated brass but another option is to use the same reamer and throating so each rifles chamber matches. If they are close the barrels might not need to be setback and the cost would not be that high. Or only the longer one would need a setback. This usually will work but there is no guarantee that each rifle will like the same loads but they will then shoot from each rifle.