I recently bought a used Remington 700 in .270Win from Cabelas for $285OTD. It had a nice steel tube Redfield in Leupold rings and bases which I removed and plan to sell but I digress…..I sent it to JES to rebore to .35 Whelen and cut and crown it at 20”. I’ve been “shooting the barrel in” so I haven’t been focused on or worried about accuracy yet, in fact I still need to bed it. Just for giggles I decided to fire 3 rounds to see if it printed reasonable groups despite it needing to be bed. I set the target at 50 yards and fired 3 rounds of factory Remington 250gr PSP Core-Lokts….they were all touching and the one ragged hole that was made gave me great confidence that the potential was there for an accurate, hard hitting, easy carrying, fairly lightweight “woods gun”.
I was really pleased with how pleasant the rifle is to shoot. I’ve shot 200gr Federal Fusion, 200gr Remington Core-Lokts and 250gr Remington PSP Core-Lokts and they all felt the same recoil wise. I expected to notice a difference between the 200’s and 250’s but multiple side by side comparisons and I still can’t feel a difference.
The communication, price ($275 for rebore, cut & crown at 20” and return shipping) and quick turnaround (~2 weeks) from JES was excellent and so far his work appears to be just as good.
I fear that if this rifle shoots as well as it appears to JES will be reboring more for me in the future. I have a brand NEW 1965 Winchester 70 in 7RM that would be great as a .338wm. I don’t have a need for a 7RM and I’m not too keen on having another caliber to feed. I do have another .338 that could use some company and that Winchester might be the ticket…
