Head spacing gauges, which one ???

[fox fire]

I've been lookin at head spcing gauges and it seems they'er sevral types, some are go, some no go, and some go/no go, which would offer best bang for the buck.

What brings me to this is a offered to check the head space on my gun...for $50 bucks, so I figured I'd just by a set and add to growin collection of gun clutter.

I'm ignorant to head spacing but hopefully not for long,thanx in advance.

[chutesnreloads]

Depends what you're doing with them .There are go guages and no-go guages.I think the go/no-go are a set of each.One is used to set headspace.The other tells you if you have too much headspace.So,what will you use them for?

[trotterlg]

For $50.00 you are getting $crewed.  You just drop the gauge in and close the bolt or try to, game over.  If you have ever fired the rifle, the go gage will "go" for sure.  Only one to worry about is a "no-go" gauge, drop that in and you should not be able to close the bolt.  Then there is a "field gauge"  it is a little longer than a "no-go" gauge, that is the one that, if you can close the bolt on it, you should worry a little.  Good luck.  Larry

[hoghunting]

 If your extractor is on the bolt face, it helps to remove the extractor before using either gauge. You don't want the extractor interfering with the gauge to get the correct measurement.

[trotterlg]

You can probably do the same thing for all practical purposes if you put about 4 layers of scotch tape on the head of a factory round and then try to close the bolt on it.  Trim it off nice around the rim before you try, but that should tell you something.  You will really want about .003 to .005, but you will probably find closer to .010, which is about all you would want to have.  A little more won't hurt much except to shorten your brass life, get past about .012 to .015 and things could be bad.  But remember, you are reading this on the internet, I am not a Gunsmith, and, for all you know, I am really a little fat lady sitting in Iran just funning with you.  Read up on it and see what others say, but make sure they are not just quoting what they also just read on the internet.  Larry

[fox fire]

I didnt think women could get fat or in Iran,wow,  Oh,,,wait, ok,,, head spacing, yea thats it.  

 Whats got me on this subject is a new Marlin XL bolt action I bought a while back, I'm just now shootin it some and out of a box of new ammo (winchester) ther was 1 round that when I went to close the bolt it would only go about half way to the lock postion, after I kept pushing on the bolt handle (not to hard but I had to make it close) it finally closed.  I found 5 more rounds that were a tight fit but would let the bolt go into the lock position without near the effort it took for that 1 perticular round.

I'm guessin it was the ammo but to be sure I wanted to have the head spacing checked, just to be sure.

Thanx all for the info.

[trotterlg]

One good thing about a bolt gun is that you can close the bolt on a tight round.  Having the rounds a little tight, where you can feel a little resistance, won't hurt a thing, I have my 17 Remington Savage set up that way just to make the brass last a little longer.  The real worry come in when there is too much headspace, then the brass streaches and if it is very bad, seperates and causes you all sorts of grief.  If I had a factory rifle that was slightly tight to close on factory ammo I would count my self lucky and be happy with it.  Mostly the factory sets them up loose so that people don't feel that little pressure to close the bolt, this keeps them from having to answer the question of why.  On a rifle chambered with one of the "improved" rounds, the headspace is set on purpose to cause a crush on the case before it is fireformed, this is used to hold the case back in the chamber for proper function.  If you don't have too much problem closing the bolt then life is good.  Plus, as the locking lugs and bolt face wear in, the effort to close the bolt will become a lot less.  Good luck.  Larry

[fox fire]

Than ya sir, hhhmmm, a piece of puzzle has been introduced.   Like I said I'm ignorant to head spacing mechanics, but learn'n.

[trotterlg]

Do a lot of reading on some of the good gun pages, but remember it is hard to sort out the junk and the people who will write about stuff after reading about it and then their "expert" opinions.  Take everything you read with a grain of salt (including this), it is not nearly always true.  Think about what you read and whether it makes common sense to you.  I think your gun is just fine, in fact, it may be a little better set up than most factory guns are.  A tight chamber generally results in slightly better accuracy because the chambered round is held firmly in the same place every time.  If you reload for your rifle, you can set your dies up to give you exactly zero (or +.0005) headspace and get excellent results.  Have fun and good luck hunting whatever you are after.  I am sure not an "expert" in gunsmithing, I just have a little experience from expermentation which has worked out for me in the past.  I do still have all my fingers and both eyes.   ;)Larry

[gunnut69]

Headspacing is a bit confusing and guages are always preferable to brass cartridge cases as the tolerances allowed for the guages is much smaller and are made to cartridge specs..,also brass cases can be crushed in the powerful camming action of some actions.. There are actually 3 different guages- go, no-go and field. The field is not used much as it is simply the no-go guage plus several thousandths. Go is just what it says, the bolt should be able to close on this gauge. The no-go similarly means the bolt should not close on the guage. If it does the headspace is too long. The field guage iondicates the headspace is grosslly overlong and is likely dangerous. Most gunsmiths suggest not using a gun that will accept a no-go and seldom use field guages. The complexity is not what is measured but from where to where... and that varies with the cartridge in question. A rimless round such as the .243 Win. measures headspace from the bolt face to a circumferencial line usuall(but not always) 1/2 way down the shoulder(between the neck and the body. A rimmed round measures the allowable range of thicknesses of the rim. Headspace is the distance from the bolt face to the front of the rim cut recess. Belted cases similarly measure from boltface to the front of the belt cut at the beginning of the chamber. These last 2 can create problems if the round is a bottlenecked one. Since the bottle necked round may be headspacing on the front of the belt as in the 7mmMag rounds the shoulder is not set by the headspace rules. If not supported by the chamber it moves forward and the cases stretches, usually just in front of the belt(thickest part of case outside the headspace area). This can and many time will cause casehead seperations after just a few reloads. Factory ammo usually doesn't cause problems. Reloaders can just set their sazers to move the shoulder back just enough for the round to chamber with minimum interference and stretching will cease. Cases will then last as well as any high intensity round. This is a case where a properly headspaced round can produce the problems associated with excessive headspace.. OH--forgot to note the line where the measurement stops at the front of the cases is known as the 'datum' line.