I was talking with my smith yesterday, and he seems to get some of the wierdest projects.

His most recent is a Remington 700 in a 416 Rem. Ok that part is standard stuff, now comes the twist. The bolt has been changed out to a Winchester, our best guess is to improve extraction issues. The bolt was a push feed type. He got curious and tried a mauser type bolt and said it fits also, although it would take a lot of fitting.

I guess the barrel on the Remington was cut like a Winchester for the extractor cut.

Anyway it all sounds fishy to me, I have heard of Sako extractors being fitted to Remingtons but never a change of the bolt. It seems to me if this was a reasonably do-able conversion the big bore guys would have been posting details of of this.

Note: my smith didn't do the change it was brought to him, it seems to work except it has extraction problems, and this seems to be related to undersized factory brass as the problem only seems to show on these pieces of brass at around .005 undersiized.

Anyway has anyone heard of this before???

I know a smith who changed a Remington 700 in 416 Remington from a push feed to a control feed. It worked well when he finished it too. He used the original bolt but modified it a great deal. Are you sure this is a push feed Winchester bolt? Is there a chance it could it be a highly modified Remington one?

I might add the smith who did this was in Coeur d' Alene at the time. P.M. or e-mail me if you don't mind telling me where this rifle showed up. I can tell you who the smith was I was reffering to then also, as I don't want to post it here for personal reasons.

I also know of a Smith who used to change Remington 700 Actions to controled round feed. In fact, I have a photograph of one and you have to look very closely at the action or you would mistake it for a Model 70 (telltale is the round bottom of the 700 action.

This guy knew what he was doing though, and although I never owned one, I am sure that he didn't let stuff out of his shop unless it worked perfectly.

Brown Precision in California used to do (I don't know if they still do) a claw extractor conversion on Remingtons. The one I had done (375 H&H Imp.) functions very well extracting, but is NOT a contolled feed.

BTW, in a Brown Precision stock it weighs 7 lbs. with 4x Leupold. Very handy.

I think this was also an option on a rifle series they called "Pro-Hunter".

Bob

Here are a couple of pics I promised:

[IMG][url="http://www.hunt101.com/?p=289422&c=500&z=1"] [/url][/IMG]

Good, good lets try another:

[url="http://www.hunt101.com/?p=289424&c=500&z=1"] [/url]

It does not look like a Winchester bolt. The cone shape isn't a Winchester push feed feature, only on the Classic action. You can buy aftermarket three position safeties for Remington bolts.

Interesting though.

Aaron

That is definately a Remington 700 bolt handle.

Appears to be a Rem 700 bolt that has a Model 70 style swing safety and the locking lugs machined to a cone feed shape.

You can identify the bolt for sure by removing the firing pin/spring assembly.

What is really differant than anything I've seen is that the claw extractor is machined into the locking lug. Normally on a Sako extractor conversion, it is located at about 34 degrees from TDC.

I think that the bolt in the picture originated as a 721 bolt and the lugs wre welded building up the cone area with the sako extracter added to the lug after it was turned to the cone shape and the 700 bolt handle replaced the dogleg 721 bolt handle. It sure looks like the 721 bolt in my shop drawer. The bolt shroud also looks like it had been turned to sharper corners to accept the Model 70 3 position swing saftey. I could be all wet but it sure looks like it to me.

reminds me of converting diamonds into jelly beans! Yes, it probably can be done....but why?

There was a Searcy CRF converted Remington model 700 (.375H&H, I think) for sale on the Cabelas website several months back.

Steve

The extractor is not like anything I have seen. It is not a Sako style which is placed outside of the locking lug. This extractor functions like a Winchester push feed or CRPF but is not a Winchester.

Aaron

The three piece safety is a Gentry we are pretty sure. The bolt does not look like it has been built up by welding. That was my first thought also.

The goofy part is that this doesn't work any better than the original setup.

I also doesn't look like this has had the lug milled for the extractor. My smith is going to pull it completly apart as he says the three position safety takes two hands to operate and he is going to work on the fitting. Another thing he tried is a heavier spring on the extractor but that doesn't work either and causes issues.

This also works most of the time, or should I say with factory ammo it works. It is will reloads there is an occasional problem, and this is will brass that is ever so slightly undersized and out of tolerance.

Bottom line is on this caliber this kind of issue is totally unsatisfactory. My suggestion was fit a new factory bolt back to this rifle and save the three position safety for some project later. He is considering it but doesn't really want to deal with headspace and barrel setback issues which will almost certainly arise.

What a lot of work for??? The commit about diamonds into jelly beans is right on and my smith agreed 100%.