A lot of great info and suggestions and I thank you all for your input.
PAbucktail....thanks for the recommendation, I’ll be going the hard chrome route. I have been reading about Cerakote not being terribly durable and hard chrome being a great option so that’s the way I’ll be going. 👍
Mart, I appreciate your advice. I like carbine style rifles and with the Whelen I’m not gunning for velocity since it’ll be used for close in work and kept to under 300 yards. I also think I’ll work up an accurate 225gr TSX load and use that for everything. Going from boat to skiff to beach to truck, etc a compact rifle has been a bit more convenient in my experience. Very few of my rifles are 24” now that I think about it, in fact only one .308, a Model 70 in 7mm mag and my Sako .222 Rem Mag have 24” barrels. I’ll proceed slowly and with a small measure (the most I can muster 😁) of common sense before making permanent modifications to the rifle but I’m stubborn and knowing me I doubt that it’ll stay at 24”.
Gunwizzard, Thanks for your input. I was actually thinking about the re-stamping thing last night and how to do it so it didn’t look like crap. I think either milling the current stamp or carefully draw filing it would work. I’ll talk to JES and see what they recommend. I know I don’t want XXXX to indicate the change in caliber since that looks lazy and crappy.
SDgunslinger, I’ll be interested in how much weight is shaved by making the 30 caliber hole a 35 caliber hole. Like I was telling mart, I’m not real big on 24” barrel rifles except on the magnums so I’m pretty set on cutting it back to around 22” but since I’m an oddball I’m thinking that I’ll cut to 21.5”.
Thanks again to all of you for your suggestions.....keep them coming. 👍
