Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Building the ultimate mini action

There's been a lot of interest in mini type actions lately. People miss the kimber 84m in 223 and several are buying howa minis and adding a better floor plate and stock. I've been wondering what the ultimate mini action would look like. I'll throw out some ideas to get the ball rolling.

1. It should be a stainless body with maybe a nitrided 4140 chomoly or dlc bolt. A different bolt material than the ss body.

2. It should be lighter weight with a fairly open hunting style top and available 2 piece picitiny rails with elevation options.

3. It should have at least a 2.6" mag box with option retrofit device to allow it to use AR mags for those that don't mind giving up mag length. The 2.6" option should be available in ADL option with feed lips in the action or bdl or an optional flush fit detachable 2.6" mag.

4. It should take rem 700 compatible triggers. Maybe with a hanger.

5. It should have a 3 way safety with the bolt locking center setting.

6. It should have floating removable bolt heads so you can switch from 223, to the grendel, ppc and arc heads, or to the 6.8 and 224 valkyrie head, and also a .473 for BR or dasher options. It would be cool to hare a hornet option too if possible then bring out an official spec k-hornet.

7. I'm wondering if it would be possible to have bolt on type feed lips so you could change them out for the various cartridge sizes in an adl or bdl configuration.

8. It would be good if it shared a foot print with a more common action so those stocks would be available for use. I wonder if you could scale it down in some areas and reduce weight but still fit a rem 700 footprint? Other options would possibly be howa mini footprint or kimber 84m or maybe even a rem model 7. Fitting a 700 sa footprint would open a world of stock options but would likely hamstring the efforts to get it to a nice trim size. I need to get out some of my various actions and look them over. Either way it needs to take 700 triggers.

9. A 3 lug bolt head with 60 or 70 degree lift interests me and an ejector set up for flat ejection so it doesn't bounce cases off your windage turret would be mandatory.

10. It should be held to tolerances, including thread timing, so that it allow shouldered prefits to be offered.

11. All barrels and action bodies will be stainless steel with a nitrided option for those that want the darker finish or extra corrosion resistance. Don't even waste time and resources producing chomoly barrels or action bodies. Save the 4140 for the bolts.

12. Bolt handles should have a rugged screw in design or be 1 piece. Bolt stop will be rugged. Maybe interchangeable knobs.

13. Prefit barrels will be offered in a variety of lighter weight and shorter options with fast twists and throated per the mag box parameters. The .224 cals should be 7 twist, the 6mms should be 7 twists, and the 6.5mms should be 7.5 twist barrels. Also could do 7 twist for 300 bo and 7.62x39. Maybe have both bore size options for 7.62x39 eventually.

14. The biggest obstacles I see are centered around getting the feeding correct for some of these shorter cartridges in an action that's modular. A standard 2.6" box would need some type of insert or adapter to take ar mags as an option. It would need to be clean looking. Getting the feed rails right to feed from an internal mag box would also be a problem. I think the bottom of the action could be designed to have a removable and interchangeable feed lip area. The mag well could be designed to take proprietary mags with longer seating lengths or even single stack options. Maybe Elon Musk could loan us a team of engineers to figure this out.

15. As for ejectors I'm not certain yet if I'd want a manual blade type or a spring loaded pin.

16. I'm also not sure on the best extractor design other than it be set to eject at a low angle. I don't know if a controlled feed type option would work well with such a wide variety of cartridges or not. The bolt heads should be interchangeable though and if a 2 lug design I'd imagine something like on my bighorn origins. A kimber style claw would make interchanging more difficult. Something similar but in a 3 lug interests me.

Ok, so if you made it through this novel let's hear your ideas or just go ahead and shred mine. After years as a marketing director I love finding out what everyone else thinks.

Let's get this right and crowd source the funding through the fire to have some made. I nominate stick to be in charge of testing. The gun companies have little interest in hearing what we want so let's start our own. Campfire Rifle Co. Featuring fast twist minis.

Bb

Jumping Jimminey Christ

Actually sounds pretty interesting. Not sure I agree with all of your ideas, but most of them have merit IMO.

The design work would need to be done by someone with some experience in this type of design and production, but there seems to be lots of CNC operators on this site that could produce such a piece or point out a source for production..

Lots of great 700 clone custom actions on the market. Think I’d be just fine with one of those in regular short action sizing.

Maybe holler at JeffO and get his thoughts? I can’t wait

I'd scratch the 2.6" box as I think you'd just wind up with something close to a Model 7, and it's really not needed for the Grendel/PPC based rounds that would be it's bread and butter. There are other options already if you want a .223 or BR/Dasher. I'd just make 2 versions, one with internal feed lips for ADL/BDL, and one without for the proprietary scaled-down AICS style mags and bottom metal that would have to be designed. I'd probably scratch the AR mag compatibility. Find a company to contract out a couple of stocks designed for the action, a lightweight hunting model and a heavier target version.

The long mag box is the most important part.
If you can't utilize longer bullets, might as well go with something already available.

Ruger Hawkeye Hunter in .204 Ruger being sold now...not sure why they chose that cartridge over the 6.5 Grendel which they could now add Arc to list but definitely should do .223 also. And bring back the boat paddle stock too. I’d grab a Grendel for sure!

I like most of your ideas. General public won’t because they don’t dig the shorties too much unless ar’s. So ends up being a niche powder class and who would invest? Sako had a xs action in 85’s would have been nice to see more options on that but I guess new 90 please? Would love a 90 peak Grendel on xs length! Couldn’t get one so went 308 instead dammit.

It’s a tough sell but I wish all that was available too.

Model 7 action. .223 bolt face.
Longer mag. A wing safety would be kinda cool.
Give me a good fiberglass stock and a stainless number 2 at 20 inches. Make mine a 6XC.

The Remington 700 is of sufficient diameter for belted magnum rounds, so anything that fits the footprint is too fat for your intended purpose.

Yeah, if it's going to be a "mini" action, it needs to be of svelte proportions and thus the constrained size to fit into svelte stocks. Otherwise might as just use a Rem 700 action to begin with.

700 Mini action would be cool, but probably not enough market interest to tool up.

I'd just like to see Kimber start making the 84M in 223 again. If they also want to build a .447" bolt face for the Grendel and ARC, that would be neat too.

Your specs seem too modular for my taste. Too many moving parts and failure points. I question how often people would use the interchangable features (bolt heads, feed lips, bottom metal) vs just buying another rifle for a different configuration.

Just make a svelte, cartridge proportional rifle with a generous mag box and fast twist. Don't overcomplicate it with bolt on bells and whistles.

Your last two statements are the Fieldcraft.

There's a lot of logic in what your saying. I worried in trying to make it too many things for too many people I'd end up in an f35 situation. If I kept it more simple it would be more rugged and less costly and as such allow people to just buy another rifle at a lower cost.

Your second to last sentence spells out what many of us are after. Just add stainless with the ability to use rem triggers and shouldered prefits.

Bb

Agree, keep it simple and get it done !!

I'll buy a couple right now.

2.6" is a good bit more than necessary for any of the Grendels, which would be the primary reason for a "mini" action. The .223 needs to sit this one out, as making a mag box long enough for it puts you in standard short action territory, as I said earlier. Just my opinion, and if Howa would make em SS from the factory, we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion.

I belive howa makes a stainless it's just not imported to the US. They have them in Australia and New Zealand.

Bb

-Something other than a rem trigger/safety (or similar) would be nice .
-2.6" mag length
-Grendel case and smaller
-faster twists
-stainless
-pic rail
-skip the floating heads
-machine work good enough to run a prefit if you wanted to.
-bolt shroud or method of gas handling that doesn't blind you.
-carbon stock with high comb