Has anyone done something like this? I have 1 XP100 handgun currently being fitted, but have since acquired 3 other barrels, then I'm thinking I can't pay for all that gunsmithing or even buy seperate actions, why not configure into a Encore barrel with a welded lug. Would enjoy hearing from someone who has this experience.......thanks! r in s.

Save yourself money and grief, sell those extra barrels on Ebay and take that money and put it towards the Encore barrels you want.

The xp is a superior platform, I'd just pick a favorite chambering instead of playing with different barrels. Something between a 6BR and 7-08 is very tought to beat.

It's not an arbitrary task to make and weld the lug and forend hanger on a barrel to make an encore tube.

Just caught the 'fever & can't seem to stop buying before now of course....r in s.

It should cost very little to check your XP barrels for headspace on your action, and if necessary, re-heaspace any that need it (which they likely won't) to fit your action.

Then you could have a "switch-barrel" XP and could use all (each) of the barrels whenever you want, so long as they are all chambered for cartridges with the same head size...

The barrels don't need to be screwed in much more than hand tight, just like on the great majority of the Remington-actioned switch barrel guns in use all over the place.

I personally have an XP-100 action which I use as a regular rifle (.30-BR), a one-hand-rifle (6PPC), and a pistol (.221-FB), in three different stock configurations, with a multitude of different barrels also made up for when I get bored with those three. Actually, as I have a spare bolt in .308 head size, my barrels aren't even all chambered for the same head size cases. It really is no big deal to accomplish.......(my .30-BR bolt extracts PPC cases quite nicely.)

Now that's interesting...a switch barrel for the XP. Wouldn't that make a great package from Remington, say a two barrel set with same boltface. I will relay your msg. to my 'smith and see about that. SSK Industries (JD & Co. ) advises me recently that they used to make XP switch barrels, but not anymore. Interesting too re. tightening, I can't keep paying $75/hr. for something I might be able to do myself armed with a gauge........A.C: do you know of any 'smith currently doing XP switch barrels?

Hi, Ray. Sorry to be so late responding, but somehow I missed your post.

First off, any competent person who barrels Remington rifles can also do XP-100s.

For the change from one barrel to another, all you need is a simple "inside-the-action" action wrench, and a vise capable of holding a barrel without marring it. Both Midway and Brownell's sell such vices quite inexpensively. Kelbly's is where I got my inside-the-action wrench. It fits both Remingtons and Stolle actions, among others.

Personally, I use an aluminum vice which doesn't even really have jaws...just a flat bottom piece and an inverted "V" top piece, held together by four bolts which one tightens after the rifle barrel is inserted.. I just use 4" C-clamps to hold it to my work bench wherever I want.

I also use a couple of pieces of sheet lead between the barrel and the top and bottom pieces of the vice so as to keep from marring the barrel when the vice is tightened up.

When putting on a barrel, I turn it into the action as far as it will go by hand. Then I put the barrel in the vice, tighten the vice, insert the action wrench into the action, turn it very gently until the barrel is snug with the action, then back the action off about 1/8th turn.

At that point, I just briskly snap the wrench (and action) clockwise, and barrel installation is done.

You don't even really need to take the action out of the stock...I have several "glue-ins" which I switch barrels on the same way.

To remove the barrel, a "snap" counter-clockwise of the action wrench will break it loose, and you can unscrew it the rest of the way by hand.

Nice thing about not having to take the stock off, is you can usually not have to worry about indexing the recoil plate when you put the next barrel on. That's especially true if the barreled action is glass-bedded into place....the stock then does its own indexing of the recoil plate (lug), and you don't even have to use the vice if you have anything else which will hold the barrel while you do the final "snap" of the action.

With a right-hand twist barrel, every shot tends to act to keep the barrel tight in the receiver. That's 'cause the bullet in being forced to spin clockwise when it takes the rifling, turns the barrel counter-clockwise, which tightens it into the action.

Some folks like to "pin" the recoil plate to the action, but I have never found that needed on my guns, so I don't do it...and my 6 PPC one-hand rifle with a Harris barrel will shoot in the 0.1's fairly often.

Three gunsmithing fellows I know locally have done switch barrel Remingtons, two of them have done XP-100s that I have seen.

The three are:

David Lee, of Roseburg, Oregon (he's in the phone book, lives on Sunshine Road)

Chuck Engleking, also of Roseburg, Oregon (dba Chuck's Chambers and Barrels), lives on Old Garden Valley Road and is also in the phone book, and

Curt Mendenhall, of Sutherlin, Oregon (10-12 miles from Roseburg, on Old Highway 99 North, also in the phone book.

Any one of the three can do primo work. Dave Lee is probably the most experienced of the three and also the least costly. Chuck is a former aerospace machinist and a good guy for anything except tapering barrels, which he really doesn't enjoy...at least so I've heard. Curt is also a very careful and skilled workman.

All three are accomplished benchrest shooters. Curt competes in 1,000 yard benchrest, Chuck shoots mainly IBS benchrest, and Dave holds/held about 10 or 12 CBA national records.

Hope this is of some help. Any questions I'll try to help you find answers, either in a public thread here, or a PM.

Best wishes and I apologize again...did not mean to put you on "ignore".

AC