First let me assure any real gunsmiths out there that I'm not going to start hacking on a barrel or rifle. I just want a good understanding for why some things are the way they are.
The thing that got me to wondering about this topic is my VTR (.308) and the extra long bullets that I have to load to seat a 150 gr Sierra Pro Hunter .010 off of the lands. The rifle really likes .010 but the bullets are .184 longer than COL (Sierra manual). I understand the COL isn't really a hard and fast length and I don't mind shooting or single shot loading the rounds however my little pea brain thinks the VTR chamber must be pretty sloppy. So then I got to wondering if somehow the chamber could be opened up into the throat area (decreasing distance to the lands?) and then the back of the barrel trimmed off. My pea brain says hell no... because it's not a flat surface and a few other reasons... but a gunsmith I'm not. Can this be fixed without replacing the barrel or do I just live with it?
How do "premium" barrel makers handle this? It seems to me that the above problem, if it really is a problem, could be handled when the barrel is machined. I get the whole "gotta make them sloppy for factory ammo" thing but this is ridiculous. A factory bullet is big time short compared to my .010 bullets. A lot shorter than the Sierra manual recommendation too.
Also- I don't pay much attention to COL anymore. All of my bullets are seated using a MIC gauge and typically I am seating to some dimension from the lands.
The thing that got me to wondering about this topic is my VTR (.308) and the extra long bullets that I have to load to seat a 150 gr Sierra Pro Hunter .010 off of the lands. The rifle really likes .010 but the bullets are .184 longer than COL (Sierra manual). I understand the COL isn't really a hard and fast length and I don't mind shooting or single shot loading the rounds however my little pea brain thinks the VTR chamber must be pretty sloppy. So then I got to wondering if somehow the chamber could be opened up into the throat area (decreasing distance to the lands?) and then the back of the barrel trimmed off. My pea brain says hell no... because it's not a flat surface and a few other reasons... but a gunsmith I'm not. Can this be fixed without replacing the barrel or do I just live with it?
How do "premium" barrel makers handle this? It seems to me that the above problem, if it really is a problem, could be handled when the barrel is machined. I get the whole "gotta make them sloppy for factory ammo" thing but this is ridiculous. A factory bullet is big time short compared to my .010 bullets. A lot shorter than the Sierra manual recommendation too.
Also- I don't pay much attention to COL anymore. All of my bullets are seated using a MIC gauge and typically I am seating to some dimension from the lands.