Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Using a Browning A-Bolt for a rebuild project

I would like to ask you-all's thoughts on using an A-Bolt for a 260 Rem project. The reason for the A-Bolt is that I have it and was looking to changeing it from 30-06 to 308 or 260 rem. This is one of the original A-Bolts, not a A-Bolt II. In the past I have seen some not to kind comments about the A-Bolts. Can some of you give my the pro and cons regarding these actions. I have two, one is my regular deer rifle and is quite accurate and has never given me any problems. It is 7mm Mag. The other is a 30-06 doesn't shoot as well but I also have not spent much time working on loads. it is this rifle I would use for the project.

The goal of the project is to have a tactical type rifle with good ballistics with mild recoil.

Thanks

RM

Take it from someone who has done it, it ain't worth doing. Trade or sell one of the A-bolts and buy a remington or winchester.........Blake

The whole complete trigger group is a complete abomination. Japanese clusterphuck comes to mind. The bi-sexual magazine/bottom metal sucks, and is brittle and tends to break instead of bend. Either way, a slight alteration will keep rounds from feedin' correctly. The bolt assy is made of a bunch of little parts and way over-complicated. Receivers are not stiff, large ports, less metal. Gunsmiths hate'em. Gettin' rid of 'em is hard, and aftermarket parts are almost non-existent. Did I mention it was made in Japan by a guy you could blind-fold with a strand of dental floss? That can't be good. He gets an extra fish head in his bowl of rice if it goes boom. Other than that, they're great. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Sell it to someone who don't know any better, buy a real rifle, and carry on...............

Sounds like you want a short action . . .

Seems that going to a short action round would be more trouble than it is worth. Dont know what it would take to make a short round feed from the magazine. Maybe a 6.5-06 would work better. I do have an A-Bolt in 260, truly love the thing, complicated parts and all.

the complicated parts argument is pretty overrated as I have taken an abolt completely apart. There are more parts but not that many more than a remington. The major problems such as pot metal parts can be replaced with all steel units except for the floor plate and trigger guard, mcmillan offers stocks and pac-nor even chambers their barrels for them. With all that being said you will be out a lot of money before the process is over and as far as I was concerned, I still did not have a rifle that I was completely confident in..........Blake

Go with a Remmy 700 or custom aftermarket action for this application.

mathman

Will some one please tell me what parts of the A bolts are "pot metal". <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> And along with that define what you mean by "pot metal". Would that be similar to the junk bottom metal that Winchester used on the last production run of M70s like the 300 win mag I bought at news of the closing?

I have owned 2 a-bolts & both have been nothing but reliable & very very accurate. I do not view them as being cheap, second class rifles.

Poor form and etiquette to shat on a man's rifle choice. That said, you will have SO many more aftermarket goodies to consider and play with if you go with the M700 or M70. There must be something right with the A-Bolt cuz they keep selling tons of'em. I just can't seem to warm up to the Brownings.

Start talking shotguns and we can do Browning A5s all day.

Being Jap-made doesn't offend me. Howa has a pretty good rep.

Painless, just wondering, when you say all the way apart, do you mean you disassembled the bolt completely as well as the trigger group?

Funny how folks bag on the A-Bolt for being Jap made. Everyone raves about CZ's, Tikkas, Sakos, etc, etc, none of which are made in the US.

Kind of curious to know if the A-Bolt family was designed by someone that works for Browning in Utah?

I dont favor one brand or the other, when there is a void to fill, what ever fills it goes in the safe. My Stainless Stalker filled the short-action, light-weight, 22 inch barrel void I was looking to fill. With a Vari-X III 3.5-10, it goes a shade over 7 pounds, and will shoot under 1/2" all day.

I love mine, shoots � MOA consistently, 6#, 300 WSM.
BUT, notice the trigger guard. Fell on it in a wilderness area, glad the trigger didn�t break off with it. Shot 3 bucks the next day with it as is though. With all this said I wouldn�t get rid of this rifle for anything.

Here are 2 pics that I robbed from the search fuction a while back to show a friend. One is an A-bolt that got rusty and did not fire anymore. The other is a Win 70 that got rusty but still worked...........



As you can see, the Win design is just a little simpler than the A-bolt's seemingly complicated mess, and much more fool proof. In fairness, it rates high compared to any huntin' trigger though. I don't know why the rear action screw of the A-bolt is where it is, looks to go through the trigger group? You can also see how much less metal the A-bolt receiver has............I'll let you all draw your own conclusions from here................2MG

Faith--while I'm not a big fan, that is a nice lookin A-bolt. Now maybe some will believe me about the bottom metal bein' brittle and tending to break instead of bend..............

Makes you wonder who in the world came up with the idea for that cheap metal on that trigger guard? Probably the bean counters.

My son is LH ,so when he wanted to hunt I,the first used LH 30.06 I found was a almost new A-II. Very,very, accurate,even without using the BOSS.But we have had a couple of problems with feeding. The scissor lift hung up and more seriously the back screw loosened,this allows the bottom metal to drop down in the center lowering the floorplate. since the mag box is on the flooorplate the bolt road over the cartridge,not picking it up. They should have used a third screw like Winchester,or better yet a one piece bottom metal.

Still, a A-bolt is nice and light, good for a 6.5mm cartridge. With the 30.06 mag box you should look at 6.5/06, or maybe 6.5x55mm will work.

Thanks everyone for your replies. It gives me some food for though. The one feature I really like on the A Bolt is the 60 degree bolt lift. It is so much more confortable to operate and is quicker to.

I have never had any problems with either the A-Bolts I have, but they have been just for hunting where tipical only one shot is needed. The rifle I have in mind will have to shoot 100 rounds a day or more, for two or four days in tactical training classes, so it needs to be durable.

I would not consider a Remington because I have seen to many have problems on the range. Last year three in as many weeks jamed a cartrige into the exacter while closing the bolt and the bolt had to be opened with a hammer, they were stuck to tight.

I have several mauser actions that could be donners but would be heaver that I would like unless I go to a 7mm mauser, 6.5 Swed or 257 bob. using a 93 or 95 action. I think 243 win would be to light a cartrige for the intended mission.

Thanks for the comments.

RM

I had 3 Abolts at one time. Used 'em from '89 to about '98. Never had a problem except rust in the CM bores. All of 'em were worked pretty hard too but in the end I sold 'em since they were becoming pretty rough.

They work for the most part but I don't think the quality in metal or design is as good as a Remmie, Howa or Winchester.

Sell it and buy a Rem 700 and don't look back.

As for the Japs not knowing how to build firearms I will relate a story about an Air Force Col I knew who lived in my neighborhood when I was growing up in the 70s. He had a huge gun collection but he only hunted with two firearms. The first one was a pre '64 Mod 70 in 7RM, he used to slip a formed black plastic spacer between the forearm tip and the barrel when it was stored. He mentioned something about keeping the barrel float even. The second firearm was a 12ga O/U shotgun made by Miroku Firearms in Japan. He said he toured the Miroku mfg plant while on miliatry leave and his O/U shotgun was handpicked from the assy line by the president of Miroku Firearms and presented to him. I held and fired that shotgun a few times while out dove and pheasant hunting with the Col and it was every bit a fine firearm as any European O/U. It had a red velvet lined black leather case and whenever I saw the Col with it I knew he was going hunting. The Col had a huge gun collection, Belgium made Brownings, Franchis, Perazzis, pre 64 Win 70s and 94s and a [bleep] of others but he only hunted with those two firearms - a Pre '64 Win 70 and a Jap made O/U.

Go figure.........................

MtnHtr

RangeMaster,


If you are enlisting the services of a gunsmith to build this rifle I would make the following suggestion: Pick a gunsmith who is experienced in building tactical rifles and tell him exactly what you are going to do with this rifle. Seek his advice and follow it. If you are building it yourself, then have at it�it�s all a learning experience anyway! Have fun and good shooting.

OR you can buy/build a Savage/Stevens. It won't cost like a 700,and you can do the gunsmithing yourself.The latest 12s have a center feed magazine system for very reliable feeding.check with these guys,you might find some ideas http://www.savageshooters.com/