Re: Headspacing belted magnums?
There is still a SAMMI spec for this belted area.
Unless someone is going to give you the brand of brass they are going to use all the time, and this is even iffy because like you said all brass is different, one would use the headspace gages.
It is possible to chamber a belted cartridge or any other cartridge, and it could have dead nuts headspace according to the gages. Drop in a piece of virgin brass and you could have bolt movement. Drop in another piece of virgin brass from another manufacture you will have no bolt movement, but it would all fall within the specs.
Most reamer makers are going to use SAMMI specs for the belted portion of the reamer and headspace gages regardless of what mods they do to the rest of the reamer. You can always spec order the reamer to start cutting the belted protion sooner or later but you would need to be pretty dang sure of this if you want all belted brass for your caliber to fit.
Once it's fired formed then the belt is not really an issue again when the cases are prepped for reloading, you worry about the shoulder then.