Today I wanted to try and measure how far I would have to load my bullets to get close to the lands. I did the trick with a cleaning rod and marking stops, then taking a bullet and pushing it up to the lands and holding with a pencil and setting the second marker on the Rod. I came up with a measurement to the tip of a 40 grain berger bullet of 2.43. This makes it pretty much impossible to load close to the lands with my rifle. Are all Handi's like this or just mine? I made sure I was not pushing hard and ramming the bullet into the rifling's so I was surprised at how far out they are. Second thing I did was try to measure the throat length. Now from what I understand to do all this I need to get a cast of the chamber, but I tried using a depth mic and see what I get. I came up with the edge of my throat being at 1.883 this seems pretty long since the specs say max length is 1.85 I think. I know I need a cast done, but what I done should be some what close I would think. Does this info sound right compared to other Handi's? I also smoked with a candle a FL sized case and chambered and the bottom half had the smoke rubbed off but the top half of the shoulder was still covered in the candle black soot. I assume this is good? Thanks guys, any info on my numbers would be great.
