Today if I were to build a 404 then I would definately use one of the Winchester M-70s, but only in a 375 or 300 RUM...Why? because the factory did the work for you, the RUMs are based on the 404 Jefferys case and the box is right..otherwise a 404 on a std. action is seldom 110% on the feed, regardless of what we may be led to believe...
Westly Richards, Riemer Johhannsen, and Harold Wolf who actually built the box from scratch, or completely rebuilt the Mauser 98 box by rewelding the existing box to the original specs of Jefferys and opening the action to fit the box. They could make one feed and feed well...Most US gunsmith try to use one of the existing boxes and they simply do not work 100% no matter what...A few magazine manufacturers claimed they built the 404 box but it was just a 416 Remington box and even with some grinding didn't work well.
The 404 historically has been a bugger to make feed, and all we ever needed was a proper box! To this day nobody makes one.
Jim Wisner was the only US Gunsmith that ever built a proper 404 Jefferys box and he has not made them for quite some time.. Butch Searcy made some awesome 404s and used the Vektor actions our of RSA and they were fantastic big Mauser Mod 20 takeoffs...Again they are no more unless you can find one at a gun show or in some pawn shop. My personal 404 is one of those Vektor actions with considerable modification.
Edit: BTW, my personal 404 is for sale, pictures to interested parties, was $12,500 marked down to $9500 in this economy...contact Ray at the below email or phone.
Last edited by atkinson; 06/02/09.
