Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Short Calibers in Long Actions, Negatives?

Yes, Don and I'm jealous inasmuch as that's a full-rail commercial action. Mine was on some kind of mysterious German sporter 98 with a thumb cut and double-set triggers. Might have been a GEW, or might have been a factory sporter.
Doesn't matter, the dang thing shot fine but the stock ALWAYS gave me a shiner. So I made it a BR. First barrel stunk (and when I recycled that it now makes a fine Fireball) so I slapped on a Lilja, redid the stock, was working up loads, shot a .260 for 5 and the next load I tried destroyed the action and stock. Pilot error. Major pilot error. Used up at least two of nine lives on that one.
By the way, yes, feeding stinks with a long action and short cases.

And to me, it is like putting a Chevy engine in an old Ford, trying to make a drag racing car out of a Civic, a great grandma wearing a mini skirt, or trying to make a Jap bike look and sound like a Harley. It just should not be done.....

HI, guy's I'm new here. My names Caleb, I'm from Montana, and I love guns. Anyway, I've got a rem 700 in a 270 win that I traded to have for a project rifle. Also have 28", .224, 8 twst pac-nor blank. I really would like a 22-250 AI, but not sure if it would feed right. Thouht about hitting the pawn shops and trading for a short action, but I've only got 300 bucks in the rifle and it's stainless pre-lock. Don't think I'll break even at a pawn shop. Anyway, any suggestions, do you think 22-250 AI can work in it. Thanks

Caleb,

Welcome aboard!!!
This is a good place to hang your hat when you have time.

In a long action, I'd likely go 22-6mmRem before I'd do a 22-250 based chambering. There's actually load data in Hornady's latest manual. Could be fun....

Yeah, I thought about 22-6mm, or my gunsmith has a 22-243 middlestead reamer, but he said 900-1000 rounds tops and throats smoked. My uncle has 22-6mm AI and 22-250 AI, he's on his 3rd or 4th barrel on the 22-6, but he said he'll never be without one. Iv'e seen him shoot rock chucks pretty rerular at 700-800 yds.
He's only had the 22-250 for a year or so, started out shooting 75gr a-max, but now he's at 55gr B-tips at almost 4000 fps. The 22-250 shot the a-max in the 3300 range, while the 22-6 was in the 3700 range. Anyway I guess it comes down to how often you wanna put a new barrel on. Thanks for the replies
CALEB

Stack the Mag with .22/250 blanks and feed into the .270 chamber. That`s an easy way to test feeding befor changing the barrel.

It should be relatively simple to convert that long action to a short action by posting a "want to trade" on the classifieds. You might have to chip in a few bucks, but who knows - there might be a guy with a short action looking for a long action.

Whatever happened to the 220 Howell? I found this site by doing a google search for it. That sounded like a great idea loaded to lower pressure. That would be about the easiest conversion to my action. I'd rather go without the short fat cases shooting vld in a long action. I have a 6.5-284 in a long action ruger77 old model, and it feeds fairly well, but I've had it hang on the back of the barrel before.

I have an old 03-A3 that was converted to 308Win and used for NRA HighPower Rifle. Heavy 26" bbl. Very accurate. No mag box shortening or blocking of any kind. Feeds and functions perfectly.
'Cept for you have to pull that bolt back an additional 1/2" or so.

A sense of proportion to my mind. Other than that there is very little gained in actual velocity in exchange for the longer action, more weight, etc. I would go ahead and try the longer bullets seating them as deeply as you have in the short action and see where your velocity is. In my short action .284, for example, the very long 140-gr TTSX (OA magazine length 2.95") seats waaaaaaaaaayyy down into the case yet gives me almost 3000 fps with a "book load" of H4831. As Barsness has repeated many times you get only a 1% vel increase with each 4% increase in case capacity (IIRC); at any rate the difference in vel of a bullet seated to the base of the neck and one seated .25"-.3" deeper will be neglible. The seating the bullet down into the case (within reason) has earned a undeserved notoriety in regard to rendering the cartridge a cripple.

Bottom line: minimal gain for weight and length added.

I see your point, I don't mind a little extra weight, but with a 28" barrel every little bit in lenght will be noticed. I'm more interested in getting out to the lands than a little velocity loss, two of my buddies have rem 700 short actions, 308, 6mm, that can't touch'em when loaded to mag length. Both are stock rifles and I'm sure my gunsmith could keep the throat to minimum if rqusted , but if they would feed through the long action it wouldn,t be neccasary.

Would you want to save that barrel for when you come up with short action? In the mean time you could do 6mm-06 or so on the long action. I don't have one but my uncle has a 240 and it's a cool round. Many here have the 6-06 and one of them is Dober. There is a few treads on it from a week or two ago. You could run your 55's like the 22-250 but faster and go up to over 100 grains if you wish. I will get my 22-250AI next week so I like that idea too, just in a short action. Welcome to the fire.....