Panda ???s

[FrozenShooter]

Guys, I just acquired a Kelbly made Panda RBRP .222 diameter cone bolt from an auction. The bolt was made in 1989. I have a 2004 RBRP Panda in 6PPC. I am setting this up for my wife. She doesn't really like the recoil of the LV 6PPC so, I figure a HV .222 should be more pleasant for her.


I took the original bolt out, put the .222 bolt in. The lockup is good and there is little difference between the feel of the lug engagement between the original bolt and the .222 bolt. Trigger breaks and firing pin drops as normal. If I didn't know which one was in the rifle, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two.


As far as I can tell all I need to do is call Kelbly or a benchrest gunsmith and order a Panda cone bolt .222 HV barrel then after it arrives, screw it on, prep and load some brass and go shoot. Is it this simple? Are the Kelbly Pandas basically built to such tight tolerances that any matching bolt / barrel combination will work on any Panda receiver? Am I missing anything?


Thanks in advance.


FrozenShooter

 

[HovisKM]

Generally, I would say yes, you are fine but I have on occasion seen bolts for panda that are not safe to interchange. If you have the 6ppc barrel on the gun, get some soft thin lead wire and afix it to the bolt cone and close the bolt and then check the thickness of the lead after it has been squezed between the cone of the bolt and cone of the barrel. This will tell you if it is safe.

You can also put tape on the cone and check it also. Forgot about doing that, it's easier.

I don't remember the acceptable range off the top of my head but I'm sure one of the gunsmiths on here can tell you or I can look it up.

Hovis

 

[P.Ericson]

About .005" is probably what most BR smiths do, around .010" is fine for field-use rifles, and I wouldn´t want to go much beyond that in a BR gun.

//Peter