Rifles

The table below contains the maximum Cartridge Overall Length (COAL) for popular detachable magazines for rifles.  This is important to consider when picking a rifle cartridge to ensure you have enough clearance to “chase the lands”, which just means as your chamber throat begins to naturally erode from use you seat your bullet further and further out so that it maintains the same relative position with the rifle lands.  Many people start with their COAL almost maxed out in their magazine, and as their chamber throat starts to wear they are forced to choose between loss of accuracy from not ...

When the 7mm Remington Magnum was originally released, it was met with overwhelming demand.  Every rifle manufacturer rushed to offer rifles chambered for the new cartridge, and in the rush some of the chamber dimensions varied slightly from different manufacturers.  This variation in the 7mm Rem Mag chamber dimensions has carried on to today, and there is still more differences in the chamber dimensions than for virtually any other rifle cartridge. What’s a chamber print? A “chamber print” is an illustration of the chamber reamer used to cut a rifle’s chamber.  It contains all of the key dimensions related to ...

I recently had a custom rifle built that was chambered as a 7mm Remington Magnum. I plan to use it as a dual-purpose rifle: Precision rifle matches (target shooting out to 1000 yards) Hunting (primarily whitetail & mule deer and the occasional wild hog) I did a ridiculous, almost embarrassing amount of research before landing on the 7mm Rem Mag cartridge. After losing a deer last year, I wanted to make sure it had enough energy to put an animal down quickly. There is no such thing as overkill. With that mindset, I actually started by looking at the 300 ...

With the number of “overbore” rifle cartridges popular today, barrel erosion is becoming a hot topic.  For example, competitive shooters using a 6 PPC typically replace a barrel after 700-800 rounds, and a 6.5-284 might also need to be replaced before the 1,000 shot mark.  That means the cost to keep a good barrel on the gun could be 60-70¢ per shot before we even consider the cost of components like match-grade bullets, brass, primers and powder.  In reality, short barrel life could easily double your cost per shot.  So what can we do to prolong the accurate life of ...