SmallCaliberCentral

My Savage 12 VL has an internal magazine. My caliper won't fit through the ejection port and I'm curious how you'd go about measuring its length accurately. Or if someone else already has measured theirs, I'd be interested to hear your results and your method (I figure they probably use the same hardware in all bolt .204s w/internal mags).

It's not a factor now because I'm only loading 32-gr Noslers -- which are too short to seat to the lands -- but eventually I'll get around to trying other, longer bullets. When that time comes, it'd be nice to know whether my max COL is going to be limited by the length of my leade or the length of my magazine.

I would just seat a bullet long in an empty case and keep seating it deeper until it fit. That way you could check to be sure it would feed smoothly into the chamber as well as fit in the magazine before you loaded up batch.

M_D wrote:I would just seat a bullet long in an empty case and keep seating it deeper until it fit. That way you could check to be sure it would feed smoothly into the chamber as well as fit in the magazine before you loaded up batch.

Yes, I would go along with MDs recomendation, I went throught the same problem with my Howa 204 and I have to load to the length of my internal mag.

Although it is alien for me to load 150 Thou off the lands it is infact common place and the a 204 seams to enjoy the long jump to the lands.

Start at the maximum of your mag and work back to find the sweet spot. You will find that your AOL gauge and dummy case are about as much use a t*ts on a fish for the 204.

Arthur

rossandjet wrote:

M_D wrote:I would just seat a bullet long in an empty case and keep seating it deeper until it fit. That way you could check to be sure it would feed smoothly into the chamber as well as fit in the magazine before you loaded up batch.

Yes, I would go along with MDs recomendation, I went throught the same problem with my Howa 204 and I have to load to the length of my internal mag.

Although it is alien for me to load 150 Thou off the lands it is infact common place and the a 204 seams to enjoy the long jump to the lands.

Start at the maximum of your mag and work back to find the sweet spot. You will find that your AOL gauge and dummy case are about as much use a t*ts on a fish for the 204.

Arthur

Meh ...makes sense but it's not very flashy. Something with bent feeler gauges, bailing wire, a matchbook cover, lithium batteries and a couple of drops of fulminate of mercury would've been more James Bond.

rossandjet, one thing I found unusual was that the Stoney Point "modified" .204 case for the head space gauge is longer to the datum line on the shoulder than my fireformed cases. I've used the gauge on several other calibers and this is the only one in which I've found that to be the case.