rufous
Well-Known Member
I have three questions.
1. How much clearance should there be between the barrel and the stock on a free floated barrel? I think I should open mine up a bit more. I wonder if sometimes the barrel touches the stock. A 0.009" thick piece of paper slides between barrel and stock but not totally freely. I can get that paper doubled up at 0.018" thick through but it definitely requires some effort to slide it in there. Is there any harm in opening up that gap other than esthetics and the possibility of other unwanted junk getting in the barrel channel? It is a 300 Win Mag big game rifle with synthetic stock (Rimrock) which has been glass bedded to the action.
2. As the throat erodes on a big game rifle have you noticed that you need to seat your bullets out further to maintain the same jump to lands as before in order to keep the same accuracy?
3. I had asked the gunsmith who chambered this Lothar Walther barrel to throat it to my specs based on a dummy round I sent him but he just had a minimum saami spec reamer and it ended up having a longer throat than I wanted (I had hoped that most bullets would touch the lands at 3.500" overall cartridge length and it turned out that most were touching at closer to 3.600". My magazine is only 3.600" and the various bullets I have tried are shooting best 0.010" to 0.035" off the lands. In trying to come up with a good practice and big game load the throat has eroded 0.030" so now I am out of magazine box. This is why I emphatically asked to have it throated to my specs. The gunsmith indicated that he would run his reamer in and then use his separate throating reamer to extend the throat to my specs but it turned out that the initial reamer cut the throat much deeper than I wanted. So I am somewhat screwed. I am wondering if someone can recommend an exceptional gunsmith who has experience and comfort working with the Lothar Walther barrels. It is a harder steel which is harder to work with than the usual SS that most other barrel makers are using. Also obviously the gunsmith would need to have a 300 Win Mag reamer that had no throat and a separate throating reamer so that he could cut the throat to my specs. My thought is that I would like to have this rifle set back about 0.5" or so to clean up the throat and then rechamber it so that it would have a shorter throat. Any thoughts or ideas?
Thanks, Rufous.
1. How much clearance should there be between the barrel and the stock on a free floated barrel? I think I should open mine up a bit more. I wonder if sometimes the barrel touches the stock. A 0.009" thick piece of paper slides between barrel and stock but not totally freely. I can get that paper doubled up at 0.018" thick through but it definitely requires some effort to slide it in there. Is there any harm in opening up that gap other than esthetics and the possibility of other unwanted junk getting in the barrel channel? It is a 300 Win Mag big game rifle with synthetic stock (Rimrock) which has been glass bedded to the action.
2. As the throat erodes on a big game rifle have you noticed that you need to seat your bullets out further to maintain the same jump to lands as before in order to keep the same accuracy?
3. I had asked the gunsmith who chambered this Lothar Walther barrel to throat it to my specs based on a dummy round I sent him but he just had a minimum saami spec reamer and it ended up having a longer throat than I wanted (I had hoped that most bullets would touch the lands at 3.500" overall cartridge length and it turned out that most were touching at closer to 3.600". My magazine is only 3.600" and the various bullets I have tried are shooting best 0.010" to 0.035" off the lands. In trying to come up with a good practice and big game load the throat has eroded 0.030" so now I am out of magazine box. This is why I emphatically asked to have it throated to my specs. The gunsmith indicated that he would run his reamer in and then use his separate throating reamer to extend the throat to my specs but it turned out that the initial reamer cut the throat much deeper than I wanted. So I am somewhat screwed. I am wondering if someone can recommend an exceptional gunsmith who has experience and comfort working with the Lothar Walther barrels. It is a harder steel which is harder to work with than the usual SS that most other barrel makers are using. Also obviously the gunsmith would need to have a 300 Win Mag reamer that had no throat and a separate throating reamer so that he could cut the throat to my specs. My thought is that I would like to have this rifle set back about 0.5" or so to clean up the throat and then rechamber it so that it would have a shorter throat. Any thoughts or ideas?
Thanks, Rufous.
