OK, followed the sticky and have a cast of the bore of my 308 Savage ...

[wquiles]

I am trying to follow these directions here:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...=1#post4308233


Molten lead (bullet mix - not soft lead) inside of a case fired in my rifle (dead primer of course!):



File it flush:



Insert soft lead wire close to bore diameter, and use case to push lead into the right areas. In my case, I used too much of the lead wire and was not able to fully close the bolt, but got a great impression:






I took several measurements:








This was the smallest (not by much):




So given these measurements, is sizing bullet to .3080" to .3085" the proper diameter for my rifle?

Is sizing to .309" or .310" too much? - I would imagine that anything above .3085" would be "shaved" as it enters the "sharp" corners?

Will

[wquiles]

No advice on sizing?

[Outpost75]

.308 should work until you have several thousand rounds on the barrel. Then cast again and adjust if needed.

[wquiles]

Thanks much. Will start sizing to .308" for now

Will

[sutherpride59]

I would just size to 308, honestly I would even go back and redo the pound cast correctly this time. That way you have an accurate measurement of everything. If you have a measurement of .3085” then obviously .308” would be undersized for your bore. I personally size to .309, shoot, look for leading, work up a decent load then shoot 5 rounds of that load at .309”, .310, .311 and as cast to see what shoots best. For new production .309&.310 shoot the same or only slightly different and as cast has never given me better accuracy but never bad accuracy either.

[wmitty]

Short throat - which boolit are you going with?

[Yodogsandman]

Go back and do it right. You should have multiple samples to check your measurements.

[robg]

I found with my 116 308 I had to full length size every time or rounds won't chamber my barrel sluged at 308 shoots 309 boolits fine 150/160/180 Lee boolits seated in the neck.I'm lazy I tend to load a few and try em.

[Kraschenbirn]

Your Savage .308 appears quite similar to mine: very short throat and tight bore (mine slugs .3075 x .300). I shot the RCBS 165SIL for several years in a McGowan-barreled M700 with a 'blueprint' chamber/throat but those won't allow bolt to close in my Savage...same story with Lyman 311191s - nose too fat. After banging my head against the inevitable, experimenting with different boolit designs and seating depths, I got a long-nosed bore-rider designed for PC (309-188GC-PC) from Arsenal and the issue went away. Still tweaking load development but I'm down to consistently keeping 5 rounds inside 1 1/2" @ 100 yds. and sub-2 MOA at 200 and 300 (off sandbags). Btw, rifle prints sub-MOA with my M118 clones (pull-down 174 gr. FMJBTs @ 2470 fps). Just received an order of pull-down SMK 175s from Rocky Mountain Reloading but haven't got around to those yet.

Bill

[Outpost75]

Also from your cast it appears that the chamber neck is longer than standard. Looks like a .30-'06 length neck on a .308 case...

What caliber was this supposed to be?

You might consider a stop-ring type bullet to take up some of that unsupported neck length.

[wquiles]

This is a Savage 308 cal rifle. Neck looks longer because I used too much lead and was not able to close the bolt.