Feelin' good, kinda' proud of me'self

alinwa

oft dis'd member
I know this is primarily a BR forum but I've been going on two years trying to come up with a lightweight hunting rifle in a blown out 338 Lapua Mag. ALL'S I WANT is a removable mag setup with 2 down and one in the pipe and to be able to carry the gun in one hand. And not have levers and hooks and assorted junk hanging off the gun, dinging fingers and tearing clothing, catching branches and ripping the cloth gun case allatime...

JUST wanting a smooth classic hunting rifle look and feel.

I've spent several thousand dollars, tried 11 different bottom metal assemblies........ there just aint nuttin' out there.

Sooooo.......

I milled out a chassis and sawed an AI CIP mag in half (sounds easy, wasn't) and got 'er done. All parts mismatched, modified, bent, spindled and mutilated and came as close as is humanly possible IMO. The mag ain't even yet quite flush because I did completely RUN OUT of tolerances but it's dern close. It carries like a gun!

If even one person appreciates this I'll be satisfied :)

It's still a prototype, rough as a cob. I haven't even cleaned all the epoxy of nor deburred the edges but it shoots 1/4moa 5-shot aggregated, sends 300gr of lead or 285gr of copper at an ungawdly rate and drops a couple tons of energy onto any target you can see.....

20180626_000145.jpg

20180626_000206.jpg


So I'm proud of myself.


jus' braggin'


LOL


al
 
I know this is primarily a BR forum but I've been going on two years trying to come up with a lightweight hunting rifle in a blown out 338 Lapua Mag. ALL'S I WANT is a removable mag setup with 2 down and one in the pipe and to be able to carry the gun in one hand. And not have levers and hooks and assorted junk hanging off the gun, dinging fingers and tearing clothing, catching branches and ripping the cloth gun case allatime...

JUST wanting a smooth classic hunting rifle look and feel.

I've spent several thousand dollars, tried 11 different bottom metal assemblies........ there just aint nuttin' out there.

Sooooo.......

I milled out a chassis and sawed an AI CIP mag in half (sounds easy, wasn't) and got 'er done. All parts mismatched, modified, bent, spindled and mutilated and came as close as is humanly possible IMO. The mag ain't even yet quite flush because I did completely RUN OUT of tolerances but it's dern close. It carries like a gun!

If even one person appreciates this I'll be satisfied :)

It's still a prototype, rough as a cob. I haven't even cleaned all the epoxy of nor deburred the edges but it shoots 1/4moa 5-shot aggregated, sends 300gr of lead or 285gr of copper at an ungawdly rate and drops a couple tons of energy onto any target you can see.....

View attachment 21152

View attachment 21153


So I'm proud of myself.


jus' braggin'


LOL


al

I like it quite a bit. The mag work looks pretty clean to me - I'm scared of sheet metal... How modified is your modified .338LM? Looks like a sharper shoulder, but that's about all I can tell from the photo.

GsT
 
I know this is primarily a BR forum but I've been going on two years trying to come up with a lightweight hunting rifle in a blown out 338 Lapua Mag. ALL'S I WANT is a removable mag setup with 2 down and one in the pipe and to be able to carry the gun in one hand. And not have levers and hooks and assorted junk hanging off the gun, dinging fingers and tearing clothing, catching branches and ripping the cloth gun case allatime...

JUST wanting a smooth classic hunting rifle look and feel.

I've spent several thousand dollars, tried 11 different bottom metal assemblies........ there just aint nuttin' out there.

Sooooo.......

I milled out a chassis and sawed an AI CIP mag in half (sounds easy, wasn't) and got 'er done. All parts mismatched, modified, bent, spindled and mutilated and came as close as is humanly possible IMO. The mag ain't even yet quite flush because I did completely RUN OUT of tolerances but it's dern close. It carries like a gun!

If even one person appreciates this I'll be satisfied :)

It's still a prototype, rough as a cob. I haven't even cleaned all the epoxy of nor deburred the edges but it shoots 1/4moa 5-shot aggregated, sends 300gr of lead or 285gr of copper at an ungawdly rate and drops a couple tons of energy onto any target you can see.....

View attachment 21152

View attachment 21153


So I'm proud of myself.


jus' braggin'


LOL


I'm proud for you. While I have you what bottom metal will accomplish the same goals for s WSM?
 
Hokay.... a few details

The bottom metal is from Curtis Customs, it's awesome, and IT SUCKS at the same time. Awesome is the mag release, friggin' brilliant. Utter SUCK is the lines/dimensions. It's sized for the "medium??" 3.7 AI's not for the long ones (AICS, CIP, "long".... the terminology varies from day to day) nor is it super short like a lot of them which only accept up to 3.6 COAL.

OK...... I don't really KNOW what's standard, they're all different, but I had to mill it out to get the "long" 3.775 mags into the well. So that sucked.

But worse is that the entire chassis, inletting footprint especially, is proprietary. AND, the freakin' inletting isn't parallel. The tabs for and aft are lengthened and flared yet the ends seem to be a pure radius but I don't know. I couldn't be bothered. I had to freehand the inletting which is just DUMB, there is no visual presentation of the floorplate area, it can just be parallel and you don't see any difference..... it's just "engineering/design expression" stuff. And it's a pita

rant OFF


The magazine is

Brownells # 100-008-957WB
Long Action AICS Magazine 3.775" Length
Mfr Part: 001000005

And started it's life as a 5rd.

It's also a liddle skinny for the blown out Lapua case so I hadda' spread it a fuzz.

The Lapua case has been fat-butted as is my wont, sides blown out to .010 tpi and 35* shoulder. I honestly don't know if the work is worth the gains, but it's a lot easier to maintain than standard dim 338L.... easily 50 reloads with foot-in-the-grill loads, no case growth or change of any sort dimensionally.


sdean,

ain't shure......

I'm also building a half dozen 300WSM's with the same goal and right now I'm at the "gettin' down to brass tacks" stage..... my next experiment will be to use the same Curtis bottom metal but with a PLASTIC AI mag hacksawed off and set flush.


AFAIK, there is currently NO OPTION for a clean flush-mounted Rem 700 style removable magazine.

Hopefully the plastic jobby works out OK.
 
I just looked on the website to check my facts......it looks as though I mistakenly called the inletting footprint "proprietary" when in fact they say it's same footprint as Badger. I thought the Badger's I've installed would go into a Rem700 inlet but seems I was wrong.

It still sucked to modify from 700 inlet LOL
 
I just looked on the website to check my facts......it looks as though I mistakenly called the inletting footprint "proprietary" when in fact they say it's same footprint as Badger. I thought the Badger's I've installed would go into a Rem700 inlet but seems I was wrong.

It still sucked to modify from 700 inlet LOL

Nice Job Al!
Always feels good when things come together and work........

Rick
 
Did you ask Chase about when the Lapua mags will be available? I know they are working on a longer lapua sized flush mag box too.
 
https://www.hsprecision.com/shop2/d...ngton-700-detachable-magazine-conversion-kit/

I have an HS Precision rifle from around 2002. It has an older style long action magazine that is nearly completely flush with the bottom of the stock. I believe mine has a max OAL of around 3.6". It looks like the new ones have a max OAL of 3.7" but appear to hang down a bit more.

Yup, exactly right.

the first lightweight 338L I built was a TAC338 milled/inletted into a Hogue AL chassis stock with the old school HS Precision bottom metal. worked champion.

Then HS went to the new plastic hangy scrotum thing and we're back to the gun rolling right out of your hand.
 
Great Job!

What does this refer to: "sides blown out to .010 tpi"?

Looks like you've done great job!

Thanks,
Ben
 
What does this refer to: "sides blown out to .010 tpi"?

Looks like you've done great job!

Thanks,
Ben
Ben, having built dozens of wildcats over the years I generally now adhere to two rules;
-#1, on any round with a "long" shoulder I initially set the shoulder angle at 35*
-#2, I set the body taper to no more than .010 tpi because it just WORKS :)

The ".010 tpi" reference means ten thousandths Taper Per Inch. The parent 338LM case has a ton of body taper, it looks almost like a big 22-250 case. And while they feed well from magazines, cases with too much body taper end up being more 'sticky' or harder to extract than cases with nearly parallel sidewalls. The end result of my modifications results in a slightly larger, much more tractable case that looks more like a stretched 338 Norma Mag, but with a 35* shoulder.

I call it the 338 McCallum
 
Thanks!

alinwa:

Thanks for the explanation! It's much appreciated and is why I hang out here to learn as much as I can.
 
'Personal satisfaction' at a job well done feels nice.

Congratulations.

It is even better when you get paid to do it.
 
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