Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB - "slow switch" barrel rifle

For Mule Deer or anyone who has experience.

In a previous article you mentioned that you had made a "slow switch" barrel set-up with when you re-barreled your 7mm SAUM to 9.3 BS. You kept the 7mm barrel so you could switch back whenever you wanted with your barrel vise, action wrench and go/no go gauges.

With the gauges to set headspace, is it repeatable enough that the developed loads stay accurate after a barrel change?

Any draw back beside the effort to change the barrel and re-sighting?

It is a concept that interest me.

It works fine. Own a long action Savage with 9.3x62, 30-06, 270 and 25-06 barrels and as long as the headspace is set correctly for SAAMI ammo, it will work.

BTW ammo fit is easily checked during the barrel swap (remove the striker !!!) by test chambering a few rounds while the barrel is still in the vice.

Ar least with a Savage, it's not all that slow. 30 minutes once you've done it a few times.

P.S. love your avatar !

BCSteve,

What capecod said, except I use witness marks instead of headspace gauges when retightening the barrels on 700's. With barrels requiring a cut-out for the extractor, such as the Winchester M70, I just line up the barrel with the bolt. They always go back to shooting the same way they did.

On my 700 with the 7mm SAUM and 9.3 BS barrels, I have a scope for each barrel in Talley detachable rings. The scopes sometimes take a click or two to rezero afterward, but they're always close.

Witness marks instead of gauges, I wouldn't have thought it would be accurate enough. I'm also planning on using a Rem 7mm SAUM and a switch barrel in .458x2". Just don't want to let the 7mm SAUM go!

on a remington 700 witness marks work fine.

Ed

The difference in headspace between a bolt gun barrel torqued to 75ft lbs and 125ft lbs is nil. I have a Dakota with 257 and 340 Bee barrels that I change regularly. I even leave the scope in place. Worry not. Check some fired cases if you doubt.

I just realized, what happens to the recoil lug?

There are a few ways of dealing with the recoil lug on an action where it is sandwiched between the barrel shoulder and the action and still have it fit the stock bedding.

First, and probably the easiest, is to have a cutout on the action wrench that holds the lug in position or use a jig that holds it in place like the Klienendorst tool.

Another way is to use a lug with a little pin or protrusion and cut a matching recess in the action (like a Savage 110 lug).

You can also have the lug pinned to the action.

Welding a lug is also possible, but would require heat treating of the action again.

I built a switch barrel on a Marlin X7 action and notched the action for a Savage lug. I would probably pin one on a Remington 700.