Gunsmithing How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

[HANDYMAN]

I'm wondering how difficult and how much trouble it would be to take a Savage heavy barrel in 308 and make it a 30-06? I have a 112fvss in 30-06 and the barrel is shot out but I have a 308 heavy barrel I'd like to re-chamber. Thanks for the help.

Shawn.

 

[Mark Housel]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

I don't think that a .30-06 reamer will properly cut a .308 chamber.
.308 is larger back behind the shoulder.

You would have to set the barrel back enough to allow the chamber to be cleaned up properly.

That would depend on the barrel.




Somehow this reminds me of a 3rd semester test question? One I mighta missed.

 

[MAGUA]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

That would be no trouble for a gunsmith to chamber to 3006.

 

[300sniper]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

i could be wrong, but from memory, mark housel is correct. i think the barrel would need to be set back to turn a 308 into a 30-06. the shoulder diameter of the 308 is larger than a 30-06. i am pretty sure i drew it up in cad one time and confirmed that even though the 308 shoulder is further back than the 30-06, a 30-06 reamer will not completely clean up a 308 chamber.

if you are ok loosing barrel length, it may be an option.

 

[Keith Johns]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Mark Housel</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Somehow this reminds me of a 3rd semester test question?
</div></div>


It was actually.
I bet you didn't miss it.

 

[LRI]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

Prints!

As the drawings illustrate, there's going to be a few challenges to overcome.

First is the difference in shoulder diameters. In this case the 30-06 (.4425" OD) isn't as large as the 308's (.4551" OD)

If you were to just cram the 30-06 reamer in the barrel you'd end up with a very odd feature roughly .400 back from where the 06's shoulder ends up. You DON'T want to do this.

In summary (I didn't do any math on this so it's an educated guess) you will need to lop off essentially all of your threaded tennon and start over if your going to want to do this. This is to get enough virgin material so that the 06 reamer wipes out all of the 308 chamber. If you have enough barrel cylinder to make it work, no reason not to.

Good luck.

C.

 

[hero's machine]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

You could ackley it.

 

[Jerry m]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

set the barrel back (if heavy enough) to get a clean chamber.

 

[gunnergirl81]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

http://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/cartridgediagrams/

Kicking the dead dog, what they said. I've also heard though that what Hero said is true. The 30-06 AI has a wider shoulder and will swallow the 308 chamber IIRC.

 

[bohem]

Re: How difficult to re-chamber a 308 to 30-06?

Chad hits it cleanly, I did the math to check it and if my memory is right I was going to have to chop off just shy of 0.6" from the tenon.

That left about 2 threads of the existing tenon so I just elected to cut it completely off and start fresh.

The 30-06 AI would fix it but the person I did this barrel for didn't want to deal with fireforming brass.