did the gap guage thing with my .30-'06 handi ...

[fish280]

... and found the daylight was less than .0025. i say less than .0025 because i couldn't quite get that leaf into space, and i COULD easily slide the .001 gauge into the space, so it's somewhere in between.

i think it's fine, but was surprised to see the gap that so many talk about. i am on my third handload of a batch o' rem brass. i have had to toss one case out of 27 fired in my rifle that would not eject after being neck sized in my old lee loader for at least the second time.

i must be blessed with a good, tight, smooth, in-the-round properly reamed chamber, because only that one case had grown too much to slickly eject after two firings. it took only a tiny, tiny tap with a coated cleaning rod to knock it out, but i tossed it anyway.

i'm not worried about trimming because i'll toss 'em when they get too long anyhow. hope to shoot again this weekend after messing with bedding the lug.

[quickdtoo]

Well, that's not exactly how my factory barrels fit. If you place a .002" blade flat against and across the standing breech above the firing pin and close the action, you should not be able to pull the blade out without a stout pull on it. Doing the same with a .001" blade will have some drag, but it will pull out fairly easily, some tighter than others. I'm not saying yours is unsafe, specially if it shoots fine, but it could be tighter. I have 9 factory fitted barrels and none are that loose, some of em the .002" blade will not pull out without ruining the blade, they are that tight. There's no way that I could slide the .001" blade into the space between barrel and breech face with the action locked up, it's just too tight. According to Fred M, there should only be .003" between the unfired case head and the standing breech....that doesn't leave a lot of room for much clearance at the barrel face. If you have a loose .002" at the barrel face, that could leave ~.005" headspace to my thinking. But maybe that's not bad and I don't think right.... :wink:

[fish280]

i think i reverse spoke myself. i could NOT CLOSE the breech against the .0025 leaf. i COULD close it on the .001 leaf. i also could poke a corner of it into the gap. the .0025 leaf i could not slide into the "gap" except for a tiny corner at the very top. i think it's OK considering the condition of the empty brass from factory loads. it looks good, measures well within specs, and a fired case slips right back in the chamber and ejects snappily.