Thread: Bolt face Diameters - Cheat Sheet

Originally Posted by Bagheera

We tend to think of action lengths in terms american cartridges or NATO standard:

223 length
308 length
3006 length
375 H&H (300win Mag)
338 LM

The Sako 85 actions match those.

Do the Europeans have different standard sizes ?
Youd think ones like the 7/8x57 and 6.5x55 would originally come in actions between 308 and 3006 length ?

Well that is a very valid point. While the Europeans had created the x57 and the 6.5x55 range of cartridges, the Americans were onto their longer 30-03 and 30-06 long action cartridges quite a few years later . Although the 250 savage served as a basis to later create the 22-250 and the 300 savage ( from which the 308 evolved more or less) ,that round was first used in a lever action.
And except a few custom creations on some Mauser Kurtz or alike, I believe it is remington with the introduction of their 722 action that started the short action trend in the USA. Winchester with their pre 64 actions at the time was still using a reduced length magazine well on their long actions to accomodate anything from 222 to 308 to 264 Winchester…
Sako on their side had already created some short action to accomodate the 308 family of cartridges.

Fast forward to the years 2000 , and we have the short magnums cartridges coming out, squeezed like fat girls with a tight corsets into short action magazines not quite designed for them originally , and since long heavy bullets can’t stick out too much, specially with Winchester range, well the Winchester solution is adopted : push them in deep! (Take a look at the original 284 Winchester and the 300 win mag ).
With the release of longer and higher bc projectiles for tackling the longer range shooting, the only way those fat short cartridges can have their maximum potential exploited was by using long actions and custom throated chambers.
It is only in the last three or four years that some custom action manufacturers like defiance came out with what they call the XM action length which is intermediate between the short and long action .( although what we call short in 308 is classed as medium for some manufacturers , and they call short what can accomodate the 223 range of cartridges, just to help with the confusion).
And we have now gone full circle in the space of a 125 years roughly.

Just as a note, bsa were chambering their 308 and 7x57 in the same medium action length…they were already onto it then :-)