I am contemplating making a petite 7X57 on a Zastava left hand action. I have a nice vintage bottom metal with an in-bow release. I want to make the gun thinner vertically and I'll need to take some metal from the bottom metal. I know that the magazine box must be shaved and the screws threaded more and shortened. Are there other changes needed? How about the mag spring and trigger? Is there a practical limit as to how much the gun can be thinned? I would like to reduce the mag capacity to three rounds. About how much will I need to remove?

You will get in trouble with the trigger(housing).

I've taken off 1/4" but as heavenknows wrote the trigger housing becomes a problem. I cut a chunk out of military trigger and welded it back together. Still working on getting trigger pull down.

I cheated and went blind box. Still had to work on trimming the trigger down. Hard to get a 3# pull with shorter lever.

Dave Wesbrook has a couple of posts on AR showcasing just such an animal.

There is a German riflemaker who spezialises in
such modifications.
He constructed a special trigger (He will certainly not sell as parts).
http://www.kesslerin.info/seiten/system.html

But it shows you how far you can go.

This is Redoak8's area of expertise! I can't find a picture of it right now, but he's done a couple with reduced height magazine

http://forums.accuratereloadin...931007702#6931007702

A great article on this subject, entitled "The Straight Grip Stalking Rifle," and written by Ken Ide, was published in the 2000 Gun Digest.

Highly recommended.

Vol717

I can email you some photos, if you are interested.

Redoak8, I know some purists gave you hell for your creations, but I for one appreciate what you've managed to accomplish! Your dedication to the weight reduction experiment is to be admired. I don't see any pics of your rifles on the site anymore, and if that's because of the harsh words some offered, I think we're poorer for it.

724wd

Thank you.

Nice to know that someone was not nauseated! I admit that I was surprised by a couple of the comments, but I realize that my rifles are not for everyone, so I tried not to take it personally.

And I did not remove the photos, someone posted them for me. But I wouldn't have deleted them anyway, I invested a lot of time and effort building those rifles, and they work well for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Robinson:
A great article on this subject, entitled "The Straight Grip Stalking Rifle," and written by Ken Ide, was published in the 2000 Gun Digest.

Highly recommended.

This book is available on Amazon, I just ordered a copy for $9!
I am a fan of straight grips. I have a straight grip Thompson Contender.

M

Not for me, but Dave Wesbrook has been doing this to Mausers and M-70's for years

Joel Dorleac makes such a rifle as well. He likes to use small rings, and has even converted 1909's to small ring when doing so.

Kevin Weaver of weaverrifles.com does this as well.
He "thinned" a modern Win M70 in 300 WSM that I have handled and it is beautiful. If I recall he didn't take a lot out of it (under a half inch if I remember) but the difference felt huge. I remember him shortening and shaping the trigger.

You would be surprised at how little you need to shorten the height of the bottom metal to really slim things up. Dave manages to do it so that it still looks "normal" albeit slim.

Here's a picture of someone's effort. I looked on the German page briefly but didn't see detail internals like this. Could be the company.

[URL= ]Mauser shortenshutzen[/URL]

I shortened this one .250" and I think it came out alright. Bottom metal was from Duane. Lowering that was straight forward, and has been mentioned already, the tricky part is the trigger. I used a Timney but had to take it apart and shorten it to fit properly.