PTG Remington 40x/700 Bolt Body to Accept Savage Bolt Head

C

crb

Ray Brooks
I am in correspondence with Dave Kiff about him supplying his excellent bolt bodies already machined to accept the Savage bolt head and baffle. There are some previous threads here on this conversion. After lunch I will look them up and link them to this thread ;)

What we need is an already converted bolt assembly [ or 2 or 3 ] for Dave to inspect. This will save him a lot of time figuring out the necessary changes and the modified firing pin details. If you have one you could spare for a short time please contact Dave at PTG pacpes@medford.net

I would appreciate it if those that have done the conversion would post on this thread their hints and tips on doing the conversion. If anyone that would be interested in buying one of these bolt bodies please respond here also.

http://benchrest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31836&highlight=savage+remington+bolt
http://benchrest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45533&highlight=savage+conversion
 
My hints and tips........

Ray, When I had the same idea several years back I was advised to get a bullet proof liability policy. IF you can find someone to underwrite your efforts you'll find they arent inexpensive.:mad:
My research also indicated that by the time you went through the trouble of making the Savage end of the conversion fit the Rem bolt body , making the required adjustments to the firing pin and the getting the bolt handle tigged on...you were cheaper buying another Rem bolt in the bolt face dia. you're switching to...:eek: unless you just like working at the lathe.
I even went through the trouble of turning a few bolt bodys out of leftover pieces of crmoly barrels....there just wasnt enough margin to make it anything but a hobby.

Best of Luck in your efforts.:D
 
PTG will be making the bolts and marketing them. I am just trying to help them get started in production. PTG already offers a wide range of Remington bolt bodies and the Savage conversion bolt body would just be another option. The Savage conversion bolt body will be much less complex to make than the normal Remington piece and will take up less CNC machine time.

The PTG bolt bodies do not come with a bolt handle so that the customer can use their favorite handle and have it properly fitted to their action. If a customer plans on using an aftermarket bolt handle on a custom build then the PTG body makes even more sense since you don't have to remove the bolt handle from the a Rem bolt and then clean up the bolt body before attaching the new handle.

Also, I believe the PTG bodies are a bit larger than the stock Remington to take up some of the excess clearance.

The currently available standard sized bolt bodies sell at Midway for about $125 plus the extractor, ejector and bolt handle. Even taking into account the cost of having the bolt handle added they aren't that much more expensive than a used Remington bolt [ $150 to $200+ seems to be the going rate for a used 700 bolt ]. Due to the ease of manufacture the Savage body should sell for a bit less which would make up for the expense of buying the Savage bolt head, extractor, etc.

Another benefit of the Savage bolt head conversion will be the reduction of the need for truing the Rem action. This is in addition to the advantage of just having to buy another bolt head if you want to change to a different case head dia.
 
Remington/Savage Bolt Head Conversions

Some time ago, last year I think, I traded emails with "Spook" over on the Savageshooters.com website about this conversion. He had posted several photos of converted bolts. He had done several and said he had developed the necessary tooling and worked the bugs out of the conversion. You might do a search over there for more information. Vic
 
I've done a couple of the conversions. There are a number of reasons for the conversion, that has been discussed on the forums. I didn't use the Savage baffle because it takes away material that contributes to the close fit of the bolt to the receiver at the front.
I went ahead and purchased a chucking reamer of the same size as the front of the Savage bolt body. A generous countersink is needed on that end to allow for clearance for the radius at the root of the Savage bolt heads.
Tooling that I have made allows me to generate a measurement of the distance from the front of the bolt handle notch in the receiver to the lug abutments. This dimension can be used when setting up the bolt handle for welding/brazing in the fixture that I have made. A pin in the fixture locates the bottom of the cocking cam cut (radius) and allows the same fixture to be used for locating and drilling/reaming the hole for the crosspin.
The modifications to the firing pin can be challanging if done on a lathe. A surface grinder can be used for some of this (spinning). Bolt bodies can be made from 4130 aircraft tubing but you have to turn the o.d. and i.d. and machine the cocking cam and heat treat same.
This whole effort is only worth doing for yourself or friends, as is the whole "accurizing" or "blueprinting" done to Remingtons. Paying for this is simply wasting money, IMO. There are so many new, good custom actions being made at reasonable prices, now. Stiller, Lawton, Surgeon, and maybe BAT is even making a "700 clone" now.
While tinkering with a 700, it is also neat to add a trigger hanger and rocker style bolt stop. But, again, not something to pay to have done, IMO.
I applaud the efforts of crb to have these made by Kiff. And the comments from others are great, we all learn by sharing.
 
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