I have an old FN Mauser action that has been Bubba drilled and tapped. It is chambered in .270 win. and I don't need or want another one. Should I re-bore it to a 35 Whelen or one of the 9.3's? or rebarrel to about anything with a standard bolt face. A 45-70 and a 338 win mag are the biggest things I have in my battery as of now. I don't think a 57mm cartridge would be in order as I want to take advantage of the longer magazine box. What do you think? What kind of savings would I realize if I rebored the original barrel vs say a Shilen S.S. Match grade?. Thanks, DW

I don't know the prices but I'd rebarrel, 35 Whelen if you just hunt here or 9.3x62 if you go to Africa.

I would rebarrel it, and the calibers I like for mausers are:

8mm-06 or 8mm gibbs, 338-06, 35 Whelen, 375-06, 429 express. All will feed perfectly from the magazine with little modification, if any.

On a mauser, rebarrels are usually cheap and easy; I don't see a lot of reason to rebore as there's probably nothing special about the barrel contour you want to retain.

dave

It would depend upon whether the original barrel had a nice set of open sights (that some FN's did) or other distinguishing features that you may desire. If so, I would rebore (I have three Cliff LaBounty rebores). Also, when considering costs keep in mind the potenials of a reblue, re-installing open sights, rebedding or fitting new barreled action into the original stock or having the barrel contoured to exactly match the original so not stock fitting required, etc. When all is considered a rebore can be the way to go. It has been for me and the quality of the work and accuracy of the rifles are up there with my custom barreled rifles. Jim Dubell now owns Cliff's business and would be who I would go to. My rebores were to 338-06, 35 Whelen and 9.3x62 (which is an FN). I have killed a fair amount of game with each and cannot really say if one is better than the other given the bullets available today.

For the cost of reboring or rebarreling sell the rifle take the money from both and buy yourself something nice.

I had a long conversation once with a well known re-boring smith. I was interested in going from 22-250 to 35 Whelen on a single shot rifle. It had a varmint barrel and plenty of thickness for the re-bore. He explained to me that he wouldn't be going from .223" to .358" in one pass but that the re-boring process was done in steps. Because there would be so many steps involved it would cost more than the rifle was worth.

How many steps would your rifle need? I can think of 270-7mm-308-8mm-338-358. Maybe it could be done in a few steps, maybe two. Nevertheless, I expect it would require more than one step up and that would add to the cost.

There is the possible issue of the thickness of the barrel. If you have a thin, light barrel then going from .277 to .358 might not be feasible. The walls might end up too thin at the muzzle. Also, if screws go into the barrel for sights, especially the front sight, the screw holes might be too deep for the barrel to be opened up to .358.

You might give a call to one of the re-bore operations and ask about the points above.

In the end, though, I think you would be better off with a new barrel.