LAlineman,
I haven't bought a new Remington for awhile, but I keep hearing about extra deep throats in current ones, so, like the others, while I don't want to think it's that deep, I can't dismiss the possibility out of hand. Some lawyer somewhere would like the resulting lower pressure.
Lets try something simple. Load a round to 2.800" COL. Push it into the chamber with your finger until it stops. Drop a dowel rod down the barrel until it stops on the bullet (with your finger still pushing the cartridge forward) and mark the rod with a pencil flush with the muzzle. Next, put just a bullet in the chamber and use the eraser end of a pencil to push it into contact with the lands. Drop the same rod in and while pushing the bullet forward, again mark the rod flush with the muzzle. The distance between the two marks will be how much longer than 2.800" COL you can go to kissing the lands.
If it turns out the throat really is very long (that difference being half an inch), then your bullet just can't touch the lands and stay inside the case with the barrel and chamber you have. In that instance, IME, it is best to start with the top of the bullet bearing surface (the cylindrical portion) seated flush with the mouth, then try it in 0.030" steps further forward until you get to where the bearing surface is about half a caliber into the case mouth. Shallower than that is perfectly possible, but your case really doesn't have very good hold on the bullet then. So, see if you don't find a depth that's better than the others for accuracy in that range. If you do, then go out a couple of 0.010" steps either side of that best value to see if anything better shows up. You want to be in the middle of the best range.
Litz put the ogive and nose length on the 168 grain Hornady A-max at 0.660" length and the bearing surface at 0.472". If you trim your cases to 2.005" long, then 2.665" will be your starting COL, and you can go forward from there to about 2.995, which is just under half a caliber, but gives you 11 even 0.030" steps forward to try. If, in the process, you find a round getting hard to chamber, then you'll know something went wrong with the gauge measurement.
Because of the deep starting seating depth, use only a starting load for this test, 10% below maximum for your bullet, powder, case and primer combination.
243winxb,
You'll want to read
this board rule.