Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Going from ADL to BDL

All I need is the correct mag box and bottom metal, right?

You can run the ADL box, just shorten it a tad, but yes.

Thanks Steelhead, but I dont follow how to shorten the box?

You might need a new spring as well to get it to slip into the floor plate. Shortening the ADL mag box is a possibility but you need a belt or disk sander, and it is a messy job. Not my first choice.

Good to see you on the fire for a change Karl!!


OK, so I wil get a BDL mag box, bottom metal and spring. Might as well do it right.

Thanks Karl

You can do it right the other way, but throwing money at it is usually the easiest route.

Dremel the little tab off the back of the box. Might need shortend.Put it together measure how much is sticking out. scribe a line cut it a few thou proud with a radiac on your dremel finsh file to the proper height. If it is only a few thou hit it with a belt sander or a good file.

FWIW, you may, someday, want to return the rifle to its original configuration, so keeping the ADL magazine box, retaining screw, trigger guard, and front TG screw in a zip lock bag may be something for you to consider. I broke down a dozen or so 700 ADL matte/synthetic youth 243s for the actions last year and kept the ADL specific parts in the boxes in the event that I ever, however unlikely that is, want to return them to their factory specs configurations.

Except for the 2 actions that I used to build faux 700 TIs, I converted all of those rifles to the BDL configuration with a variety of barrels and stocks. Both Brownells and GPC have the magazine boxes in stock for around $10 IIRC.

Jeff

exactly ... it's such a minimal amount of money to buy the proper mag box, I can't see why you wouldn't. It's the BDL floor plate assembly that's the most expensive, so if you already have that, just spend the extra $10 and get the BDL box ...

That's my thinking....