If you stay with cartridges like the 222 and 223 Rem with the small .378" bolt face, you'll likely never have headspace issues or bolt compression issues. My opinion from seeing a bunch of them and from owning one of each.
If you jump to cartridges with a .478" bolt face that give considerably more rearward bolt thrust, issues might result. I once had one in 22-250 that could not handle a load that manuals showed to be about 85% of max. The bolt would lock up, and after several times of this happening, I tried a rubber mallet to free the bolt a little quicker.
Bingo... Off came the bolt handle that resulted in a trip back to Remington to get it brazed back on.
After that experience, I shot a load that was below 85% max of published loads and used the rifle quite a bit over a couple of years. After maybe 1K rounds through the rifle, I started to see incipient case head separation. A trip to a smith showed excessive head space had developed in the rifle. Its the only rifle I've ever had the problem develop in after a reasonable amount of shooting. Some other models of rifles I own have been shot far more times than this particular 788 had been shot without a hint of problems.
My experience is not unique for the .478" bolt face 788 rifles. There used to be a link on the internet where this was a common 788 complaint, but I haven't been able to locate it to at least attempt to show that what I've said isn't just my "opinion" to those who are true believers.
I still have two 788's with the .478" bolt faces, but they get shot very little, and when I do shoot them, I use very safe hand loaded cartridges which to some extent defeats the purpose of the two cartridges involved. If you use the rifles as hunting rifles without a significant amount of cartridges ran through them, issues may never occur except with warmer loads that might result in significant bolt compression. YMMV, as they say.
