Rifle Info:30-06 Rem 700 BDL[....snip...]
Because of the long taper, when I use a Stoney Point gauge, the bullet is extended too far out of the neck to have the brass grip it enough by the time it touches the rifling to get a proper initial reading.
That's pretty typical of factory Remington chambers (very long throats). Sometimes its a "problem", sometimes not.
The general wisdom is that VLD bullet designs (the term "VLD" usually means that the shape of the bullet's nose is a "secant ogive") tend to be fairly sensitive to seating depth, and they also usually work best when touching, nearly touching, or engaging the lands. Yet there are know exceptions to this also, Berger even has a blurb about this on their website.
So you might to just try the B168VLDs in your rifle, even with "too much" jump, and see how they shoot, they might actually shoot quite well.
If not, there are a few ways to work with the long throat in your rifle.
- You could use a bullet that is known to be generally tolerant of jump ("tnagent ogive" designs are generally felt to have this property). Some examples are the Sierra 155 (older #2155), Sierra 168 MK, Berger 155.5 Fullbore, Berger 155 BT (formerly called "LTB", which was short for "length tolerant bullet"), and (I think) the Berger 185 BT.
- You could use a longer heavier match bullet. With a long enough shank, you will be able to touch the rifling. For example, a friend with a Remington in .308 Win used Sierra 190 MKs, which could be loaded out far enough to touch the rifling without falling out of the case (*way* too long to feed from a .308 magazine though!).
What are you generally looking for? Do you want a bullet that will work well at long range (beyond 600)? (if so, avoid the Sierra 168MK and other good short range bullets, use either one of the good 155 Palma bullets or some of the heavier successful match bullets). Do you want to keep the bullet weight down in order to also keep the recoil down, or can you go to 180, 190, or 210 class bullets? (if you are open to heavier bullets and want very high long range performance, you might want to look into the Berger 185BT, 208 Amax, Berger 210VLD, Sierra 210).
The .30-06 has more case capacity and also a longer neck than the .308W. Combined with your long throat, you might find that long heavy bullets give you useful flexibility in seating depth to tune your loads.
