Remington rifles are renown for having a slightly shorter magazine than other manufacturers of 308 rifles.
This, combined with a slightly longer throat, means that it is often difficult to find a projectile that will reach the rifling and still fit in the magazine. Seating projectiles deep enough to fit in the magazine will mean the projectile has to ‘jump’ to get into the rifling, which can cause accuracy problems.
Having your rifle re-chambered or re-barreled can mitigate these issues. We’ve been doing some testing comparing the chambers in factory Remington rifles to firearms that we have machined with the M-852 match chamber and found the throat to be an average of 0.125″ shorter, or approximately 3mm. This makes a huge difference when attempting to get the maximum accuracy out of your rifle with ladder testing.
Alternatively, if you are having problems with seating depths and can’t get your rounds near the rifling lands, there are a few things you can try.
– Use projectiles with hollow points. Soft tip and plastic tips add to the length of the projectile and must be seated deeper to fit in the mag. Hollow pointed projectiles can be seated out further.
– Projectiles with tangent ogives are shorter in length than secant ogive projectiles. Try using projectiles like Sierra or Nosler – avoid Berger, Hornady and some Lapua (which has a longer tangent ogive).
Don’t forget that respectable accuracy can be achieved with a jump of 0.150″ to the lands in some cases. If it really bothers you though, we can eliminate much of the jump by rechambering the barrel.