I was recently given a smith corona action that has been tapped twice.. The previous owner had a peep sight, then drilled again for scope. The old holes are plugged and can barely tell they're there. I was going to convert to 35 or 375 whelen, but because of the extra holes I'm now shaky on the issue.

Anybody have any thoughts as to the strength being compromised by the extra set of holes.

thanks.
turfman

If it had a peep sight on it, that would have been installed on the side of the rear receiver bridge, right? Then, a scope mount would have been drilled on the top of the rear bridge. This is not the "strength" area of concern. It's the front locking lugs that takes the pressure. And these don't get damaged or comprimized when mounting a scope, unless someone drills down the side of the top lug. I think you will be fine.

No this is a funny one. The peep is a ghost ring style williams. The thing was mounted on the top of the "Front" receiver ring.

should have said that before.

turfman

So then it has four screw holes instead of two in the receiver ring? Are they "in line" with each other or are they stagered? In other words, the thread length of an 03 is about an inch or so (from memory). Is there a straight line of holes along this thread area?

Well they're kinda staggered. One of the holes is partially tapped into a plugged hole. Imagine two holes in a straight line x distance apart center of top of the ring. Now imagine two plugged holes a little up from the tapped holes with a larger spacing gap and the tapped holes actually cuts into one of these holes.

This rifle was shot for years in its original form with these two sets of holes; I guess thats why I figured I could get away with the whelen.

turfman

I seriously doubt the extra holes will cause any loss of strength at all.....