OK, so I am new to long range shooting, hunting, and reloading. I have been hunting for over 30 years but never "long range" hunting. Over the last couple months I had a custom rifle built. I received the rifle back today. It looks great and is exactly what I was going for. It is a 7mm Rem mag built on a 700 action with a Bartlien barrel. Trued action and bolt lugs. I have never reloaded for any of my previous rifles. I always used factory ammo. Well with this custom build I decided to try to start reloading. Once I got my rifle back today I mounted the scope and checked for Case over all length with the Frankford COAL kit that I have. I followed the direction exactly and came up with a COAL of 3.135 after several checks and several bullet types. That is a considerable amount short of what my reloading books say it should be. Am I doing something wrong or did the smith that built this rifle not do something right? Even factory ammo is longer than this. I am completely confused. Now I did chamber a couple of factory rounds and they chamber fine. That is two totally different rounds with different OAL. Should I just try and see how this works out or should I take this back to the smith and make him fix it? My hope was to load 168gr Hunting VLD's.
