Brad,

I've tried to do what you described with my Stainless Classic 338, "feed it real sloooowly", and all that happens is the rounds just slip under the extracter, and then they slide into the chamber.

It isn't hanging up anywhere. Odd.

The neck/belt-cut out hang up may be common on recent M-70 s , Brad , but Iv'e never seen it on push feed M-70 s , Rugers , Remingtons , FN s , Parker-Hales , or a Whitwoth I aquired this year.



So I don't think it's fair to say that is a belted case design problem , but rather it seems to me to be a recent CRF M-70 quality control problem .

My experiences with belted cartridges just left me feeling that it is a PITA loading them because you need to be carefull to stack belt on belt. For that one simple reason I prefer beltless, but its not a real big obstacle to overcome.

Never had any feeding problems with mine that I can recall though.

Its good that weve come full circle, now the belted mags are old stuff and beltless mags are all the rage. Aint it cool when trendyness catches up with sensibility for a while?

The belt is indeed a PIA on most cases that don't strictly need it (e.g. .458 Win Mag or the original .H&H cases), put there largely for "marketing purposes. But IMHO, the feeding is not the problem. Rather the issues are how belted cases are manufactured (poor tolerances), how chambers are cut for belted cases (mostly way oversize), how dies for belted cases are made, and the fact that belts take up unnecessary space in the magazine. So here is to beltless magnums, I just wish there were more "standard" magnums without the belt! As somebody mentioned above, the good old 8x68S (and other early German designs like the 9.3x64) are great examples of how to design large capacity cases without resorting to the pesky belts.
- mike