No, I am not mistaken. My gunWAS a 2005 purchase A-Bolt varmint in 243 WSSM. These guns will not properly feed a cartridge from the magazine into the chamber unlessyou use factory ammo with varmint tips or else reloads exactly like them. I looked at two other A-Bolts in the gun shop...same situation. I had two gunsmiths check out these rifles (some on their shelves).

These guns cannot be handloaded for; if you try to feed a cartridge with an OALslightly longer than a factory cartridge or with any tip except a very pointy varmint tip it will hit up against the entrance to the chamber when pushing with the gun bolt. The gun has only a miniscule feeding ramp (just a mere bevel near the chamber entrance), nothing of any area to guide the bullet tip up and into the chamber. You cannot drop a cartridge into the magazine area and push it into the chamber withoutgreat difficulty; it just will not feed easily and smoothly into the chamber. The bullet tips get damaged by the magazine or else by the process of feeding the cartridge into the chamber. This gun is just poorly engineered.

My A-Bolt shot okay, but nothing to really brag about. If I cannot reload for a rifle, I don't keep it. I traded the A-Bolt for a Sako. Like going from Yugo to Mercedes.

John Browning would roll over in his grave if he knew about these rifles.