.243 Bolt Face

Rechamber? There isn't a lot of leeway there if you stick to factory calibers, and nothing that would be any great improvement over the .243. I think the 6mm Remington has too much taper to clean up the .243 chamber and would be no great improvement anyway (though it is one of my personal favorites).

Rebarrelling opens up the field to .22-250, .308 Winchester, .358 Winchester, and any other short/medium round with that base size. Of course, it is a more expensive proposition and it might be more economical to trade the rifle.

Jim

the 243 is a necked down 308, so anything based on that same case you could rebarrel to without modifying the bolt face.

How about a .260 rem or 7mm-08. There's a lot of good 7mm bullets out there. Good Luck

The .473 boltface dimension is standard on a TON of cartridges---from .22-250 on up. BUT, you're limiting yourself by using the .243 as a starting point, because it only allows the use of "short action" cartridges.

I've been toying with a similar idea, but I'm gonna use a Savage, because its easier to change barrels, and if I start with a "long action" I can go from .22-250 up to 35 whelen(or beyond), and about 100 (including wildcats) calibers in between. May have to work out feeding issues, but that's OK. AND, you can change the bolt face (as opposed to the whole bolt/action, on a Savage, to add even more (e.g. magnum .532 rim size) calibers.

OK, Mountain Bear,

You said "rechamber" and I answered on that basis. If you are going to rebarrel, that opens up a more possibilities limited only by the action length.

You obviously know better, but a lot of folks ask about "rechambering" a .30-06 to .45-70 or "rechambering" a .375 Mag to .308. Just can't be done.

Jim

Rebarrel from.308 win to 6 mm Rem

I have a Remington 788 in .308 Winchester. (I own 2 of these BTW)
I am thinking about rebarrel to 6 mm Remington. My question is will I need to modify the bolt face to accommodate this round? From what I read above if I change to a .243 it will not be necessary.

Also if you have any input on barrels that would be great. I am looking at trying to use a shorter 22" varmint taper barrel from PAC-NOR with a 1 in 9 rate of twist.

Welcome to THR, Bowser.

The 6mm Rem uses the same bolt face as the 308, and when handloaded, easily out performs the 243.
PAC-NOR barrels have a good reputation, and a 1in9" twist is good to handle nearly all available bullet weights in 6mm, but I would opt for a 24" barrel.
I would say go for it, you wont be disappointed.



NCsmitty

Thanks for the input. The bolt face was pretty much my only concern with the change over but I knew that I could always fall back to the 243. I am looking at using a Hornady 87 grain V-Max. What are your concerns with using the 22" inch barrel vs the 24" as you suggested. I am trying to make the gun some what compact and several of the factory guns come with a 22" barrel. This gun will be used for some white tail or varmint hunting but will probably kill more paper than anything @ 100 yards. I have several guns of different calibers so I am not trying to make this my do all gun it just happens to be my latest pet project with a certain idea in mind when I started. But if it will not work or accuracy will be hindered severally. I obviously don't want to do it. This is the first time I have ever gone into this depth of changing this much stuff on a gun. I am going to a timney trigger, laminated stock from rifle-stocks.com and stainless fluted barrel with 1 in 9 twist from pac-nor as mentioned above.

For me, the 24" is just extra free velocity. If your choice is 22", it will work fine with a loss of maybe 50FPS over the 24".
I was only voicing my preference, and realize not everyone shares my reasoning.
No one can argue with your choice of components, and it should be a great rifle.



NCsmitty

The 788 magazine for 6mm is different from the .243/.308 box. Add $38 to the project.

I don't know if the magazine well in stock and action is different or not. But you should.

Strictly speaking a "rechamber" means to cut a new chamber for a cartridge of the same caliber as the original barrel. This would limit you on a 243 to 243 AI or possibly 6mm Remington or 240 Wby IF your action was long enough to handle a longer case.

If you have the option of rebarreling, then you can use a lot of different cartridges:

22-250
250 Savage
260 Rem
7mm-08
308
338 Federal
358 Win

These are the short action cartridges, if the action is long enough you could go to the 7x57 family or even the 30-06 family. Lots of choices.

"Any intruiging suggestions?"


The .473" headsize includes a LOT of factory cartridges plus a really LOT of wildcats. What you're asking would require a long look at a good loading manual; I'm to lazy to do that for anyone.

I was thinking the same thing.

IMO: Anyone going to gunsmith school should already have done the necessary reading to build a backround knowledge of stuff this basic a long time ago.

rc

Well, its been three and a half years, his profile says he is a gunsmith and he is still active on the forum. Maybe he will drop by this thread.

Bowser, the guy who reactivated the old thread, has started a new one.



NCsmitty

Savage 243 bolt face

wHERE WOULD YO FIND A BOLT FACE FOR A SAVAGE??/