10mm Mike
Member
This is going to be abit long winded, so I apologize in advance.
I recently discovered (by complete accident) that there are a few companies that have made a barrel nut system for Remington 700's that allow for the swapping of barrels much the same way that is done with Savage rifles. I really like the idea of being able to switch out barrels on my Remington's without needing to send it to a gunsmith should the need arise. Now, none of my Remingtons currently need to be re-barreled, but the idea was intriguing enough to get me thinking about what all would be involved in building up a semi custom rifle by myself using a barrel nut system - cause its fun to day dream on a slow Friday afternoon at work
So, I started doing some research just for fun on what would be involved in such a project, and I quickly found that the choice of caliber would play a bigger role than I anticipated in determining the difficulty of completing such a project. If I were to stick with a caliber from the .308 or .30-06 family it seems like it would be relatively straight forward as long as I made sure I had the right bolt face. Same thing with "normal" magnums like .300 win mag or 7mm rem mag. Seemed like everything would work out as nicely as long as I got the right size magazine and/or follower, etc...
However, if I were to try to go with something alittle less common and abit more powerful like something from the Remington Ultra Magnum family, it starts getting a little hairy. This is where I need the knowledge of my fellow THR'ers:
1) ACTION MODIFICATION: Ultra Magnums use a standard magnum bolt face, which is nice, but sometimes the feed rails on the action have to be opened up so the cartridge can fit. I read where a couple of guys have said they converted a .338 win mag and a 7mm rem mag to an ultra magnum with just a barrel swap, while another guy with a .300 win mag had to have the feed rails opened up. Can the rails be opened up with some careful filing or is this strictly a gunsmiths affair, who will need to do some precision milling?
What about custom Remington clones that are held to more consistent tolerances like Stiller, Pierce, etc? Do they need to be opened up or would they fit an ultra magnum without modification? (since everyone is different, lets assume its a Stiller Tac 300) If they did need to be opened up, is it likely that Stiller/whoever would open the feed rails up for you if you told them it was going for an ultra magnum build... or no?
2) STOCK & MAGAZINE COMPATIBILITY: I'm fond of rifle chassis systems like AI, XLR, McRee, etc and it seems like most are made to work with AI mags. The problem with this is that AI mags won't work with ultra magnums unless you do a substantial modification to the magazine. Cutting a big piece out of an $80+ magazine is not a terribly attractive proposition to me. Other magazine types required modifying the action, and this isn't any more appealing to me than cutting on a magazine. So, I continued to research magazine options and found that a lot of people have been able to use Seekins Precision .338 Lapua mags successfully, and the only thing they had to do was adjust the feed lips. Of course those people were also using Seekins bottom metal on a more traditional style stock. So the question here is, will Seekins mags work with chassis systems that are designed to use AI mags like the XLR chassis?
3) MUZZLE BRAKES: This isn't necessarily specific to ultra magnums, but for brakes commonly found on bolt actions. If you had your barrel threaded from the factory when you bought it and you want to install a brake... how would you go about that? Most muzzle attachments for AR's and the like are meant to be secured and timed via a crush washer or something along those lines, but I don't recall seeing many brakes commonly used on bolt actions secured that way. Does the gunsmith time the threads of the barrel on the lathe when he installs a brake or is there some other method I'm not aware of? Or do they commonly use a crush washer too and I'm just blind?
Now, at this point its all just theoretical. I don't have plans on going through with any of this anytime soon. I just want to know what is involved in making it all work - so there is no point in trying to convince me to use a different caliber or just have a gunsmith do all of the work. Think of it purely as a thought exercise and the pursuit of knowledge
Thanks.
I recently discovered (by complete accident) that there are a few companies that have made a barrel nut system for Remington 700's that allow for the swapping of barrels much the same way that is done with Savage rifles. I really like the idea of being able to switch out barrels on my Remington's without needing to send it to a gunsmith should the need arise. Now, none of my Remingtons currently need to be re-barreled, but the idea was intriguing enough to get me thinking about what all would be involved in building up a semi custom rifle by myself using a barrel nut system - cause its fun to day dream on a slow Friday afternoon at work
So, I started doing some research just for fun on what would be involved in such a project, and I quickly found that the choice of caliber would play a bigger role than I anticipated in determining the difficulty of completing such a project. If I were to stick with a caliber from the .308 or .30-06 family it seems like it would be relatively straight forward as long as I made sure I had the right bolt face. Same thing with "normal" magnums like .300 win mag or 7mm rem mag. Seemed like everything would work out as nicely as long as I got the right size magazine and/or follower, etc...
However, if I were to try to go with something alittle less common and abit more powerful like something from the Remington Ultra Magnum family, it starts getting a little hairy. This is where I need the knowledge of my fellow THR'ers:
1) ACTION MODIFICATION: Ultra Magnums use a standard magnum bolt face, which is nice, but sometimes the feed rails on the action have to be opened up so the cartridge can fit. I read where a couple of guys have said they converted a .338 win mag and a 7mm rem mag to an ultra magnum with just a barrel swap, while another guy with a .300 win mag had to have the feed rails opened up. Can the rails be opened up with some careful filing or is this strictly a gunsmiths affair, who will need to do some precision milling?
What about custom Remington clones that are held to more consistent tolerances like Stiller, Pierce, etc? Do they need to be opened up or would they fit an ultra magnum without modification? (since everyone is different, lets assume its a Stiller Tac 300) If they did need to be opened up, is it likely that Stiller/whoever would open the feed rails up for you if you told them it was going for an ultra magnum build... or no?
2) STOCK & MAGAZINE COMPATIBILITY: I'm fond of rifle chassis systems like AI, XLR, McRee, etc and it seems like most are made to work with AI mags. The problem with this is that AI mags won't work with ultra magnums unless you do a substantial modification to the magazine. Cutting a big piece out of an $80+ magazine is not a terribly attractive proposition to me. Other magazine types required modifying the action, and this isn't any more appealing to me than cutting on a magazine. So, I continued to research magazine options and found that a lot of people have been able to use Seekins Precision .338 Lapua mags successfully, and the only thing they had to do was adjust the feed lips. Of course those people were also using Seekins bottom metal on a more traditional style stock. So the question here is, will Seekins mags work with chassis systems that are designed to use AI mags like the XLR chassis?
3) MUZZLE BRAKES: This isn't necessarily specific to ultra magnums, but for brakes commonly found on bolt actions. If you had your barrel threaded from the factory when you bought it and you want to install a brake... how would you go about that? Most muzzle attachments for AR's and the like are meant to be secured and timed via a crush washer or something along those lines, but I don't recall seeing many brakes commonly used on bolt actions secured that way. Does the gunsmith time the threads of the barrel on the lathe when he installs a brake or is there some other method I'm not aware of? Or do they commonly use a crush washer too and I'm just blind?
Now, at this point its all just theoretical. I don't have plans on going through with any of this anytime soon. I just want to know what is involved in making it all work - so there is no point in trying to convince me to use a different caliber or just have a gunsmith do all of the work. Think of it purely as a thought exercise and the pursuit of knowledge
Thanks.
