Need a third (and fourth and fifth and ...) opinion here! Picked up a Pre-64 H&H that had previously been rechambered to 300 Wby. Was showing it to a buddy and a gun show carnie (that I dont get along with anyway) butts in and says that I got screwed, the bottom locking lug abutment was garbage because metal had been removed from the locking lug seat. Got into a discussion with him about exactly what he meant and he insisted that metal had been removed making it unsafe. Problem is I could see where some metal had been removed but from the feed ramp itself. I used a bore scope to inspect the seat and it did not look like it had been messed with. Took it to a local smith and he agreed that material had been removed from the feed ramp but did not make it unsafe, just a shame that whoever did it did not know what they were doing as it was unnessisary! Said it was perfectly safe to fire. Here is a pic.


Not sure if it is good enough to tell what you are looking at but you can see material is removed from the edges but the center of the feed ramp still has the factory height. With the action out of the stock you can see that there is minimal clearance between the bolt and the feed ramp, just like on my 375. Gun has obviously been fired quite a bit. Bore is polished fairly smooth, it is bedded into a very nice custom stock. I bought it from a little old man who must have been near 75. He claimed it was his hunting rifle for years but it kicked so much he was having trouble shooting it with his arthritus. So what do you think? Too much material removed to be safe or fire away :-).

Thanks,
Tim

I will let the true experts answer your safety question, but I also have one of my own:

Did the gun carnie offer to buy it from you after telling you what a POS it was?

Todd

Hi Tim,

Glad to here the locking lugs were okay. I was pretty sure when Kim and I looked at it that you would be okay but know knowing it is ggod to go, you got a heck of good action for a great price.

Jeff

The problem is, whenever you remove material from the feed ramp, you are reducing the thickness of the lug seat which can compromise the safety of the action. That said, I can't tell from the photo whether it's safe or not, and I wouldn't consider any advise given, based solely on a photo, to be too credible. I would recommend letting a competent gunsmith take a look. Maybe even two. Good luck.

FWIW, gunshows are a great place for folks to unload their crap. I know when a gunshow has been to town just by the size of the line forming at the shop door on the Monday following one. Gotta be careful! Good luck...

Gun carnie did not offer to buy it but suggested parting it out. I kinda felt he was leading up to that but I headed him off by telling him I had the tools to tear it down and part it out if it needed it. He did say that he and a couple of others had looked at it during set up but passed on it.

Jeff, Thanks for the kind words. I think it is ok too but still a little aprehensive (sp)!

Westpac, I agree it is hard to diagnose from a picture. I have had one qualified smith look at it (he has been doing this for many years and has a good local reputation) but there are no others in the area that I know of. Would love to have 2 or 3 more qualified smiths look at it hands on but not really possible without sending it out.

Thanks,

Tim

That looks like a fairly typical 300H&H M70 action to me. When Winchester lengthened the M70 to take the 300 H&H, that is how they did it. They opened it to the front. You had the experience of having someone who knew nothing prove it to you by speaking right up. Regards, Bill.

Bill,

Not neccesarily disagreeing with what you say. I agree that the M70 Long Mags were opened up as you say, but the conversion to the Weatherby factory ammo sometimes caused the ramp to be reduced and the mag box lengthened. Don't have the specs in fromt of me but I think the W'by was a bit longer.

I had a 300 mag m70 in the shop that had been converted to the W'by. One look at it and I told the owner to drive out into the middle of the lake and drop it in. The entire lower lug had been ground down along with the underside of the action up to and including part of the front guard screw hole. There was only the top lug left to bear in the action.

Thanks for all the replys guys. The two people that I feel were truely qualified who looked at it agreed that it would be OK. Took it out yesterday and put 10 rounds through it, didn't blow up! Strangly enough it looks to be the most accurate mdl 70 I have had, shooting around 1/2", go figure!

Thanks again,
Tim

I think this one definitely qualifies! This action came into my shop already barreled up as a .375 Ruger. The other guy who did the barrel work tried to get it to feed, and it ended up like this. Needless to say, it got another action. Josh and I cut it open so we could see what was left of the bottom lug and also to keep anybody from using it. Here are some pictures.

Great pictures, thanks Tip

Nice photos.

Dear Mr. Burns:

It breaks my heart to see an 1898 Mauser ruined like that, not to mention the insanity of putting something unsafe into a customer's hands. You did the right thing by destroying it, and taking it out of circulation.

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

Mr Burns,

Great photos, thanks for adding them to this thread. Thank goodness my mdl 70 is not cut anywhere near that much.

Tim

I was inspecting some ZastavaM98 actions recently,that had been factory modified to accept .375H&H.
They had notably less ramp than on the cutup M98 posted by TipBurns(about 1/2-2/3rds of what you see). I mentioned my concerns about the big cut out, dealer said, they are made of modern steels and had all been proofed from the factory. Still, I DiDnot like it at all.
Pitty I didnt have a camera, I think what you would have seen, would have made many here nervous about using one.
Then on the other hand, premium companies like WaffenJung, seem to remove a fair amount of metal from std.m98 for rem.416, Im sure they know what their doing!...Its just that I need a little more reassurance/convincing!!!
Its really the last place I would like to begin removing metal from any action.
The feed ramps on New Kurz actions from H&W and GMA, are somewhat shorter than on their magnum mauser bigbrothers. Keep in mind, those Kurz are used for high Psi WSM cartridges.