Gunsmithing Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

[Hellbender]

Didn't know whether to post this in the gunsmithing section or the .22 section, but since it is "gunsmith" heavy, I put it here. This isn't a simple conversion, it will need lots of "tweaks" and little things polished and relieved to work really slick.

NOTE: I AM NOT INTERESTED IN DOING THIS FOR ANYONE, I DO NOT HAVE AN FFL!!!!

This is for public use and anyone and any gunsmith can use it or sell it as they please.

It will fit into a standard BDL cutout stock.

Anyway,
I rounded up a 40X bbl'd action from Don in SC, looked things over and ordered every part I could find from Brownell's that had anything to do with .22 magazine parts or assy's from the parts section.

After careful scrutiny of the parts, I settled on the new Marlin bolt action for the conversion parts.

Parts and magazines are cheap and readily available (Wal-Mart has mags in stock). Here's the 3 parts needed (about $18) and magazine from Brownells...

Here's the 3 parts assembled, the magwell is made of glass-reinforced nylon, like an m-16 stock...

Fire up the Belt Sander and file and remove all the unneeded material (grind off the ejector flush, too)

Add a couple of 1/8" thick plates to the sides...

It's a PITA, until I figured out how to do it, I had to invent a special tool (patent pending

) to countersink the 6 each 5-40 screws inside the magwell....

To make the tool, just take one of the 5-40 countersink head screws and file a few teeth on it, put it inside the magwell in one of the predrilled holes, chuck it in a hand drill and pull out on it as you spin the drill. It will cut and melt it's way into the magwell as you spin the drill.

Take some measurements from the part and fire up the mill, cut a hole in the bottom of the receiver to fit, the front part of the hole should actually be touching the barrel. Then make a flat from the hole back to the center 8-36tpi threaded hole (Disregard the extra 1/4" hole shown in the pic, it's not needed)....

I started to try using the ejector on the Marlin assy, but kept running into problems, I finally settled on cutting off the front of the stock Remmy single shot feed assy. When I figured that out, lots of stuff fell into place and started working well.

Make a block to fit the two screw holes and also fit between the two side plates on the magwell you added, cut away everything not needed...

 

[Hellbender]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Magwell installed.... but you still have bolt and magazine mods to make....

Bolt needs the following work... reshape lower face to allow cartridge to slide into place; polish all surfaces that may touch cartridge, including underside of bolt; relieve lower edges of bolt for magazine clearance; relieve and polish extractor and shellholder to allow rim of cartridge to slide into place, etc, etc.

Mags need lips shortened to approx. .300" long (stock mag on right)...

Works really slick, just have to cut a BDL floorplate to fit around the mag and release and everything will be done...

 

[Phylodog]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Very nice, you are a brave man.

 

[jcwarrior87]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

nice work, great job on the photos, nice to see someone the takes good pics of his work while he does it.

 

[jasonk]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Phylodog</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Very nice, you are a brave man.</div></div>

+100 Very cool....and VERY brave.

 

[long-shot]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Guys,

I shoot with Hellbender and he does nothing half way. I've personally seen his Frankinguns work and work quite well. He's one of those who looks at everyone just thinking "hmmm... I could do that with just a little tweaking", and then a full blown custom is born.

jeff

 

[Victor N TN]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Looks like a fine project to me.

 

[birddog762]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

i wouldt think twice to shoot it. nicely done and if your not happy with it you can always learn and improve from here.

 

[Cheyenne19]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Very nice.

 

[chad3]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Very nice job

 

[sobrbiker883]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Very cool (and very ballsy unless you've got a few extra 40X's laying around)!

Now get another one, an AICS chassis, and make a magazine that will feed from an AICS mag shell!

 

[Hellbender]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sobrbiker883</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Very cool (and very ballsy unless you've got a few extra 40X's laying around)!

Now get another one, an AICS chassis, and make a magazine that will feed from an AICS mag shell! </div></div>

The problem with doing this commercially is all the tweaks involved to make it work slick would be very difficult to mass produce. This bolt is NOT made for mag loading, the bolt face, ejector, shell holder, and underside of bolt all have to be modified carefully. Not a lot of spare parts around if you screw one up.

AND, I hear there are many little variations in bolts and actions over the years, further adding to the confusion.

AND, a mag system NOT connected to the gun alone (like mine is) like an AICS mag (which connects to the STOCK), adds another level of tweaking to fit the different stock variations to the action very consistently (i.e. good bedding, and perfect magazine to chamber alignment is required). You couldn't have a mag that wiggles or moves around like our sloppy Badger bottom metal on centerfires.

For example, the huge hole in the barrel chamber a .308 has is pretty easy to hit with the pointy bullet tip on our bullets. You can stand back and about throw the cartridges into the chamber.

A .22 chamber has hardly any slop to hit the hole AND a straight sided cartridge, as soon as it is released from the mag must be held straight with the chamber as it pushes in, or you will bend it as it chambers.

Can it be done, sure, but it's gonna take a lot of hand work and fitting by the gunsmith and that's not cheap. Don't plan on a $300 conversion.

If someone was all set up to do it (everything already figured out) JUST the bolt mods (which will be required for ANY TYPE of mag conversion) will take a couple of hours.

Lower chamber radius and polish will be another 1/2 hour.

Receiver cuts will be at least an hour.

Making AISC type mag shells for .22 mags.....

Getting bottom metal perfectly fitted and aligned....

Etc, etc.

I think a fair price for the conversion I just finished would be $850-1000 dollars or so. Sounds crazy, but there is a lot of work and risk of screwing up some expensive, hard to replace components.

You would have to add mags and bottom metal to an AICS type conversion, say another $250-300 for bottom metal, stock inletting $50-100 and $75-100 for each mag. AND a bedding job $$?? But you would reduce it by the cost of making the magwell I fabricated.

 

[beenjammin]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

well darn. I never knew it was going to be this tough. I might as well sell my 40x and join Team Quad. Perhaps Roedale Precision will make their AICS-like stock work with quad. Id be just as happy. If the conversion is going to run 800-1000, thats going to be about 3k for a .22lr trainer without the scope.

For that kind of dough i could just buy a ton of .308 bullets, primers, powder etc and train with the real deal.

 

[hrt4me]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

This looks great, but I will have to consider whether I want to undertake such a project when my own Rem40X HB comes in...

Hellbender, why did you end up going with this 7-round Marlin magazine rather than the 10-round Marlin 795 magazine? Or for that matter, something like the 10-round Remington 597 magazine, or even the 5-shot Remington 581/541 magazine? Did you find those just did not happen to fit?

Thanks!

 

[R.Walters]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jasonk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Phylodog</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Very nice, you are a brave man.</div></div>

+100 Very cool....and VERY brave. </div></div>very very brave

 

[d13s3l]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

nicely done sir

very good pics too

 

[Hellbender]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: B. Melick</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This looks great, but I will have to consider whether I want to undertake such a project when my own Rem40X HB comes in...

Hellbender, why did you end up going with this 7-round Marlin magazine rather than the 10-round Marlin 795 magazine? Or for that matter, something like the 10-round Remington 597 magazine, or even the 5-shot Remington 581/541 magazine? Did you find those just did not happen to fit?

Thanks! </div></div>

Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but I missed your post for some reason.

I needed the entire magwell AND mag AND it all had to fit in my parameters. What most people don't realize is the whole mag & magwell system has to work, not just the mag.

I wanted to use a standard BDL bottom metal, so a curved mag would have hit the front of the BDL metal hinge, so that kicked out a bunch of mags.

The angle of the mag, for proper feeding, was critical, I was originally going to use an Anchutz system, but couldn't get it all to work out.

I didn't want a mag that stuck out too far, and most 5 rounders were too short to give me a grip to pull it out.

The cast metal mags were too wide, after you added in the magwell, they wouldn't fit in the BDL cut, and would have had to had a really big hole cut in the bottom of the receiver.

I also only had about 10 different .22's to look at, so there is probably something better out there, I just didn't find it.

This works perfect, it is just not simple, like everyone (including me) wants. If someone wanted to take my magwell and CNC it, then it would be a pretty simple conversion.

A real machinist (which I AM NOT) could probably have done some things I didn't feel comfy doing, also. I only had one rifle, and parts for these are a royal pain to get.

 

[hrt4me]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Hellbender, how is your conversion working out for you? During the past few months, have you encountered any issues which you had to tweak or fine tune?

 

[Hellbender]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Here's a pic of the gun completed, I cut the bbl to 22" and turned down the taper a bunch, it shoots Wolf ME into the .2's and .3's at 50 yards. The conversion works well, it feeds and ejects better than my Annie (the Annie will out-shoot it a little, though, for pure accuracy, at least with the ammo I've tried). I've never bedded the action, though, just the stock alum. bedding block in the B&C.

 

[cal50]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Very well done sir!

I have been toying around with converting my Remington 541-X to something that uses a steel magazine instead of their nylon wet dream they decided to use.

 

[hrt4me]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

It turned out nice!

 

[Hellbender]

Re: Remington 40X .22 magazine conversion-DONE

Had a guy ask about this conversion thread, so I'm moving it up again.

 

[Sasuke]

This level of work definitely deserves a bump!

People spend upwards of $4500 to have their 1911's worked on alone. You could stand to make a living on that level of craftsmanship.

Very nice indeed!!!