• Winner! Quick Shot Challenge: Caption This Sniper Fail Meme

    View thread

Gunsmithing WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

mq1kael

Private
Minuteman
Apr 13, 2008
33
0
Hattiesburg, MS
I bought a stock .30-06 Rem 700 sporter barrel. I am wondering if it's possible to set back and chamber in .308? I am thinking about a couple different directions with the barrel, first thought is a 7.62x25 AK but I'm also thinking about a .308 mauser project or a .308 single shot.

So in short I'm asking what can a .30-06 barrel be rechambered to on a stock rem 700 barrel? I would provide measurements but I'm at work right now

Thanks
Kael
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

The Army's M-24 is a long action shooting 308s, so I guess they can be made to shoot.

I made my grandson a 308 Hunting rifle on a long action 700, its a great shooter but its better to put a block in the mag well and use a short action follower and spring, if you have a 12 year old who has a hard time remembering to load the rounds to the back of the mag.
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

Curious why you'd do that and keep the original barrel?

Another thing to ask is the barrel contour. If you don't have the material at the front of the chamber it's still safe to sshoot but it may shoot like crap, I've seen it happen.

If you're going to do that the gunsmith bill is going to be the same, put a new barrel on it.

Also, unless you're not a reloader, I'd keep that 30-06 since it's a lot more capable than a 308 and you can load it light or really heavy.

The long action will be a bonus if you want to shoot heavies in either caliber, you can load the 208's into a 308 nice adn long and actually get some useful velocity out of it. If you load them into a 30-06 you can have something that will run with the 300 WM, I get 2850+ from my 26" barreled -06.

There's also no problem feeding 308's from a long action, my dad built a mauser 98 into a 308 and it requires nothing to make it feed well.
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: mq1kael</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I bought a stock .30-06 Rem 700 sporter barrel. I am wondering if it's possible to set back and chamber in .308? I am thinking about a couple different directions with the barrel, first thought is a 7.62x25 AK but I'm also thinking about a .308 mauser project or a .308 single shot.

So in short I'm asking what can a .30-06 barrel be rechambered to on a stock rem 700 barrel? I would provide measurements but I'm at work right now

Thanks
Kael </div></div>


I believe it can be done because the .30-06 has a narrower shoulder and a less tapered body than the .308 Winchester

http://www.6mmbr.com/cartridgediagrams.html



.30-06 Springfield

3006sprg.png




.308 Winchester

308Win.png

 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

I do not know whether you are going to have enough shank to do that. Your going to have to set it back about .4 and on a sporter barrel I do not know if your going to be able to do it. Measure from the shoulder where the recoil lug usually touches the barrel to where the barrel taper begins. If that measures more than .400 and you are creative in chucking it in the lathe you can probably do it.
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

To clarify I'm only interested in this cause I got the barrel for cheap. I didn't buy a whole gun, sorry that wasn't as clear as it should have been. I do shoot a .30-06 for hunting but I bought this barrel to play with (maybe turn down for a 7.62x25 AK. So shouldn't be a trouble to turn it down/chamber to that correct?
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

7.62x25? That's a subgun round used in the Tokarev adn CZ52 pistols as well as their machine pistols.

Are you thinking of the 7.62x39? The trouble you'll have with that is bolt face on the 30-06 is different and the bore sizes are different. The 30 cal AK round shoots a .310 bore and unless you load it with 308 bullets the factory ammo may very well cause overpressure issues.
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

no the 7.62x 25 round is what I'm after. I've seen it done and is very slick and cheap to shoot. Very excellent suppressed as well.
I don't have a x25 in front of me but the bolt face difference is marginal and I think can be fixed by tigging and cutting down. The .311 and .308 were both used in AK ammo, by different countries at different times. The x25 is supposed to be .308, but as with others it may be as much as .311. The main thing to recommend that round in the AK is the ammo goes for around $120 for 1200 wholesale. I know that the bore will work I was mainly concerned about the structural ramifications of rechambering a barrel Ie metal stresses as well as the sporter shoulder being too far back.
Thanks for all the replies, there is a lot of knowledge hanging around this site
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: mq1kael</div><div class="ubbcode-body">no the 7.62x 25 round is what I'm after. I've seen it done and is very slick and cheap to shoot. Very excellent suppressed as well.
I don't have a x25 in front of me but the bolt face difference is marginal and I think can be fixed by tigging and cutting down. The .311 and .308 were both used in AK ammo, by different countries at different times. The x25 is supposed to be .308, but as with others it may be as much as .311. The main thing to recommend that round in the AK is the ammo goes for around $120 for 1200 wholesale. I know that the bore will work I was mainly concerned about the structural ramifications of rechambering a barrel Ie metal stresses as well as the sporter shoulder being too far back.
Thanks for all the replies, there is a lot of knowledge hanging around this site </div></div>

The 7.62x25 case head is ~.38" in diameter, the 30-06 is .473-.475 on your rifle.

That bolt is heat treated, if you refill the material by tigging it back in place you need to do the following:

Fill material in bolt face
Anneal bolt head
Machine new bolt face
Install new extractor/ejector
Reheat treat
Double check machining after re-heat treat.

This is assuming you're comfortable with reheat treating a bolt head on a rifle. I'm not.

Best bet would be to find a 223 action to work from, since the case heads are very similar.

The round is a pretty light hitter in the suppressed world with 110gr bullets, the performance of the round really shines with 85gr bullets hauling.

If you want to do this route, by all means, it's possible if you have a medium to heavy contoured barrel (because you're going to chop off everything but the neck of the chamber).

The cost involved is going to be prohibitive compared to just getting a 223 bolt face short action and a barrel blank.

It will be much easier to feed from a 223 action as well, you'll need ~1" of a spacer in the aft of the mag well as opposed to 2.5-3" of spacer.

A Savage model 12 would be the platform that I'd approach with this. Fun little projects like this are cool, don't get me wrong, it's just going to be expensive unless you're willing to do a lot of work yourself.

Actually, any Savage short action would do it, you need to have a 223 bolt face for it though.

Thinking about it a little more:

Savage with 223 bolt face
Get a repeater action with a blind mag box
Get CZ52 magazines
Make a block to hold the CZ52 mags in the factor BM, inlet the stock for the mags to stick through the bottom.

You now have a bolt action, repeating, DBM frankenrifle in 7.62x25

I have a pile of parts here to do something similar with DE 44 Mag magazines and an old k98 action. My dad wants to turn it into a bolt action, repeating 17" barreled rifle threaded for quiet work that can run ultra hot 44 mag loads or nice soft suppressed loads for plinking.
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

I don't have a .30-06 rifle.

I'm trying to put this barrel on an AK, I've seen it done so I know it's possible. On further remembrance they used a 5.45 AK74 boltface and opened it up for the 7.62
Thanksall
Kael
 
Re: WTK if a .30-06 can be barreled to ...

I guess I missed what action you're actually going to use.

I would think in a bolt action, a shorty 700 would be the nuts.

But you need a .223 bolt face to open up a little, the 5.45x39 and 7.62x39 bolt face is too big, I think.

The guys building direct impingement 7.62x25 Tokarev ARs use lightly modified .223 bolts.

Oh, AK. Interesting.