Ok,

Has anyone suffered from this dumb-a$$ attack or is it just me. I have been considering this conversion for sometime because I wanted a little more frontal area out of my M1A (and perhaps more money than brain, idle time on my hands, etc).

I cannot conceive of any action strength issues and I think that the magazines will work. Well has anyone done this. If you have please let me in on your lessons learned.

Thanks,
Todd E

Uh, why?

There may be a 'smith out there who would do this, but I'm not sure it would be worth the money. Unless of course you have cash to burn, and you really believe that having one of the finest long range service rifles in the world isn't enough.

As I see it, there are only two approaches to this conversion, and I wouldn't recommend either. You can have the barrel rebored, thus thinning the barrel, or you can have a new barrel machined and profiled with a decent wall thickness, and then have to modify, or have made, a new gas assembly to make it work. And then of course there is refitting the action to the stock.

The .358 Winchester is a fine cartridge in its own right, but I see no advantage in converting an M1A to fire it. It is also a much shorter range cartridge than the .308, so the conversion would negate the advantages of the rifle itself. If you want a semi-auto in .358, I'm sure you could find a Winchester Model 100 in .308 and have it converted for less. Or a Remington Model 81A Woodmaster in .35 Remington which is almost as good with handloads.

It's your rifle, and your choice, but why change and modify such a good rifle when there are more reasonable alternatives?

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Surely we must all hang together, for separately we will all surely hang.

Eric,

That is precisely why I designated it a dumb a$$ attack. Actually, I have a M21 and a friend is talking about selling me a M1A carbine. That was the rifle I was thinking of converting. I just thought it would be a real trick woods rifle with the extra shock associated with the increased frontal area of the 358.

I cannot agrue with your points however they are all good one.

Todd E

I say go for it. I would go with a new barrel, but it shouldn't be too hard to do. I built an 18" 35 Whelen scout gun on a Springfield 1903 (very high serial number). I love this gun, especialy since I can use stripper clips.

What with the technology available at Krieger, it's possible you could make this happen for less money than one might think. It might be that their manufacturing methods would be flexible enough to produce a finished M1A .358 barrel instead of the ones they currently produce in .308

Most likely you'd want to have them drill the gas port hole deliberately small, and eventually work your way up until the action funtions properly.

Of course, you could consider this source to be utterly unreliable, based on the fact that I think a somewhat sporterized Garand in .35 Whelan would be very cool indeed.

Scott

[This message has been edited by Scott Thornley (edited 11-15-2001).]