Drawing from the the thread in the BB forum, I have a Winchester 70 safari classic in .458 Win mag. The gun shoots in the low .5" range and handles well, but i am still thinking of doing the conversion to the Lott anyway.

I'm worried about the potential loss of accuracy? I have had one smith, Kerry O'day of MG Arms, tell me he could almost guarantee no loss in accuracy. Then I had Briley tell me the exact opposite, they would almost guarantee there would be a definite loss of accuracy.

Is it worth the risk for the extra power, and if the conversion went well I would have an extremely accurate Lott with all that wondefful extra room in the case for more powder?

BW,
the story is, "it depends".. I don't know how anyone would say THAT gun would shoot better or worse, and be assured of it. a 1/2 moa gun is a pretty tight one.

Here's what happens.. when you do the lott, you are recutting the last ~.5" of the throat and case. Depending on the skill of the smith, the grade of the reamer, the setup, and just plain luck, you might get a very well done chamber.. and that might work worse, or better.

"almost guarantee" ... is like "kinda pregnant".. fun to try to get there, but if it didn't work out, well "almost"

Is it worth it? I sure think so. If the smith has a reamer, this is nearly a walk in job for the chamber(wonder how long the wait at MG is?)

Go ahead an order the 416 mag box and follower from brownells, btw.

jeffe

thanks jeffe

Depending on the throat dimensions, it might be the only thing that changes is the body of the chamber removes .30" of the previous throat and the old throat doesn't change.

I would expect there to be no signifigant change in accuracy, assuming you use a competent smith. Briley's a shotgun shop, so I'd look elsewhere for getting the work done.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul H:
...Briley's a shotgun shop, so I'd look elsewhere for getting the work done.

These days, Briley's is touting itself as a complete gunsmithing shop with 14 gunsmith's on site. They offer built to order rifles, too. However, if they are as "pricey" on the rifle work as for their other services, you could probably do better elsewhere.

I was thinking of calling matt at Hill Country Rifles and getting his thoughts and opinions on it.

Make sure you check the feeding of soft points in your new Lott: they usually feed solids no problems; softs are another story.

jim