Hope someone hear can answer this . I have been thinking of taking my remington 700 in .30/06 springfield and having it rechambered to .308 norma magnum. Who do i send it to ? who does quality work and are there any disadvantages in doing this . Thanks Tanoose

the 308 Norma case is to big and the rim on the Norma is .532 and the -06 is .473 the bolt face is completely different

[ 08-22-2003, 05:26: Message edited by: 4bambam ]

The one drawback I see is the 22 inch barrel of the 700 in 30/06. I would be more inclined to rebarrel if I wanted to go to a magnum. Also, though the 308 Norma is one of my personal favorites, I think conversion to the 300 win Mag is more practical. Opening of the Remington boltface is a bit involved and will add around 80-100 dollars to the cost. Regards, Bill.

Doable, but impractical.

You'll have to open the bolt face, install a wider magazine box, and you would be better off with a longer "magnum" magazine box. After reaming out the chamber, you'll still have only a 22" barrel and therefore won't gain all that much in velocity.

You would be much better off selling your current rifle and purchasing similar gun in .300 Winchester. If you just HAVE to HAVE a .308 Norma, then buy any magnum action 700 and have it rebarreled with a 24" or longer barrel. Hundreds of gunshops across the country do this kind of work.

Thirty-five or so years ago there was a mini-craze of rechambering 03 Springfields to .308 Norma. This was not too difficult, and because the Springfield had a 24 inch barrel, was a more reasonable conversion. It also made more sense then when the cost of a new rifle was pretty high as compared to the relatively cheap cost of "shade tree" gunsmithing. The situation is reversed now, with the price of a new gun being much lower relative to the custom work that goes into a rifle conversion.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Stonecreek:
[QB]Doable, but impractical.

You'll have to open the bolt face, install a wider magazine box, and you would be better off with a longer "magnum" magazine box. [UNQUOTE]
Stonecreek. I'll agree with the "doable but impractical" part, but not on the magazine length. I just double checked using my Remington 700 in 30-06 and 3 rounds of .375 H&H fit just fine with 1/8" to spare. Remington, unlike Winchester, does not use magazine blocking fillers to handle different cartridges. I have three model 700 Remingtons in 30-06 (it just worked out that way ) and all of them, the ADL, BDL and the Classic are all long enough to take the .375 H&H mag. round in the magazine.
I agree on the impracability of doing it though because of the too short barrel (22"), converting the bolt face to handle the round, and the use of a cartridge that while is a very good one, is probably now in the realm of a semi-wildcat.
I have a Winchester model 70 in .300 Win. Mag. that I want to replace the magazine box, follower, and bolt stop to make a true magnum length gun. Then I'll have the barrel throated out so that I can seat a 180 gr. Nosler PT with the base event with the junction of the neck and shoulder, where Winchester really should have placed it the first time. Seems like the late Bob hagel did that with a Remington 700 and came darn close to reaching .300 Wby. velocities. My M70 does right well with 200 gr. Speer hot cores at 2950 FPS from it's 26" barrel with .75-80" groups. That's about the only reson I haven't messed with it. Might ruin that fine accuracy that it now delivers.
Paul B.

Paul, thanks for the correction. I was thinking that the "standard" long action 700 used a shorter and narrower magazine, but I'm sure you're correct. Seeing as how that would eliminate much of the magazine adaptation, you would only need to slightly widen the feed rails and change the follower, I would think.

Now if you could just weld a few inches on to the barrel, you'd have a nice magnum rifle for only a few hundred dollars more that you could have bought a new one for.