Long Throats on a 5R?

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lonely_wolf

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First, I know very little about this stuff- but I like finding things out.

I keep reading that the Rem 5R's (308's) have long throats from the factory. Many of the posters in the threads I read mentioned having difficulty development loads and/or getting the bullet near the lands because of this.
A few posters then mentioned having the barrel re chambered and set back as a solution.

If a person was to do this, is it as simple as asking the gunsmith to re chamber the 308? Or would I need to specify something in particular? If so, what exactly are the options?

Will the cost justify the difference the work will make? (I think re chambering is around $200?)

Also, is there a reason the throats are made long?

I'm really just trying to understand more so then planning on doing it. Thanks.
 
Before doing anything to the gun, I would exhaust your current load development to see if it will shoot well. A number of these shoot very well without touching the steel, so they can and are made to work well.

Long throats are a curse to most factory guns. It allows you to chamber nearly any factory ammo. Seating depth tolerant bullets like the SMK's (used in Federal Gold Medal Match) and the 178 Amax will work reasobably well and still fit the magazine, but many "pointier" match bullets are more sensitive to where they sit in relation to the lands, and often your seating depth does not permit use of magazine feeding. The other thing is that factory chambers are SAAMI spec and sloppy. It allows feeding and extracting of a variety of ammo, but few types work exceedingly well.

IF and I mean IF you have tried everyting and the gun does not shoot well - and you have let someone else have a serious go at the rifle as well (small groups do not come without skill and ability, Most people are not capable of shooting a quarter-inch group with a 308 without a great deal of practice and experience) - simply re-chambering is likely a waste of money. Factory barrels sometimes never shoot well, and a new chamber is no guarantee it will fix the problem.

This is when it is time to contemplate options. A re-barreling should include a complete accurization as well. This will cost money, but it will give you a rifle capable of exceptional accuracy. I really would work with what you have and see if it can be made to work though.
 
with my 5R I have been seating most of my reloads to an oal of 2.8" based on some of the reviews available out there and have had some great results
 
For the bullets to seat against the rifling in my remmy 5R, I need an OAL of 2.935". This means theres not much neck holding onto the bullet. My best 100 yard groups are made this way. But when I extend the range I can see the groups really grow.

I recently rebooted my load development and started from scratch. This Time I wanted the rounds to fit the magazine. So I forced myself to work with 2.800". The big surprise...although the 100 yard groups are nothing special, at ranges beyond 600 yards these are WAY more precise.

Old load out ~ 2405fps:
168 Gr hornady BTHP match @ 2.935"
39.5 Gr Varget
CCI BR2 in remmy brass

New and more precise load ~ 2660fps:
168 Gr berger HPBT match @ 2.800"
43.5 Gr Varget
CCI BR2 in same brass
 
Factory chambers (Remington in particular) have long throats because they have lawyers who think they are being smart by protecting someone, somehow.

Oftentimes you'll get very good accuracy with jump-tolerant bullets (e.g Sierra #2155 155, Sierra 168, 175, Berger 155BT and 155.5FB) seated to plain old magazine length (nominally 2.800 to the tip) pushed at ordinary max velocities.

In fact if you can't get good accuracy this way, it's a bit of a warning that there's probably something wrong somewhere (the barrel, the bedding, the scope or its mountings, etc).

It would be a rare case in which paying for a rechambering of a factory barrel would seem like money well spent. It costs just as much to chamber a brand new match barrel, it would be awfully tempting to spend the chambering money on a barrel that you *know* will be a world-class barrel.

Some $15 factory barrels actually do shoot quite well, but there are absolutely no promises there (IIRC Remington won't consider a barrel to be "bad" unless it shoots worse than 1.5MOA)
 
Thanks for the reply guys. I just didn't really understand the long throat complaints and why it would be an issue. I'm happy to hear it isn't something I should be bothered by.

To continue the conversation though- What/how do people typically chamber a barrel? Is there a general purpose chamber length that offers reasonable performance?

Or do serious shooters chamber only to a specific load they use in competition?
 
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Chambering is typically done with a particular range of bullets - or the desire to mag feed- in mind. Palma and TR shooters have a whole bunch of magic-bullet recipes for chamber dimensions, and they use 155-156 grain bullets.
 
5 r

I own a 5R and shot it in stock form for two years , it has since been modded
custom barrel / trigger etc, I set all the bullets to 2.800 oal when it was stock and used 43.0 gr of varget or 42.0 gr of n-150 with the .175 smk bullett and it shot decent groups out to 200 yds beyond that range it started to show its weakness , unless you are willing to put some coin into it to turn it into a true tack driver don't worry about long chambers / throats etc, load up some rounds and go out and enjoy yourself ;) I tryed different seating depths but found 2.800 was best in my 5 R , Haveing the trigger set down is worth while the stock trigger on mine was too heavy so it set it down to 2lbs and that helped quite a bit.
 
Thanks for the replies. I think I have a better understanding now. Definitely not something a newbie needs to spend much time thinking about!
 
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