I swapped out the barrel on my Venezuelan SAFN tonight, rebarrelling it to 8x57 (the 7mm barrel had been cutdown by someone). Removing the old barrel was easy, as was installing & timing the new barrel. I checked headspace with a cartridge & the stripped bolt... it closed with just a whisper of light pressure. Be assured, I plan the check it with proper headspace gages before going to the range. I've run into a few things I have to deal with before the job is complete. The first is the spacer in the magazine which I'll probably alter by grinding two reliefs for the longer 8mm cartridges. The second thing is that the feed ramp needs to be shortened a bit, also to give clearance for the 8mm cartridges. The final thing is the gas cylinder plug. The plug from my old barrel will fit into the new cylinder but will not turn into position. Does any one know the dimensional differences between the gas cylinder plugs? Could someone give me the lenth of the 8x57 feed ramp from the breech face? I guess I could figure it out but it would be nice to have the dimensions from an 8x57 rifle firsthand. Oh yeah, I am curious as to the difference between the 7x57 mag & the 8x57 mag. Are they dmensionally the same? Is the difference the additon of the spacer & a shorter follower? I sure would appreciate it if you fellas could help me out.
Thanks,
skid
Thanks,
skid
