I can mark this 'solved'. What I was missing is that functions like len() will give the same results for Unicode or ANSI.

[vba]
cSQL = "SELECT len(NMaxVar) AS NMaxLen, NMaxVar FROM [dbo].[N_MaxTest];"
'or
cSQL = "SELECT len(MaxVar) AS MaxLen, MaxVar FROM [dbo].[MaxTest];"

'will have the same length
[/vba]

What I needed was a ByteCount, which I am not sure is native to VBA .

I then resolved the Russian Unicode by using an ADODB.Stream - which inserted into an NvarcharMax field nicely. Stan