Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Esoteric question for the Guru's

I look forward to the pics. What color of hydrodipping are you going to go with on the stock and cerakote on the metal??? I have to say, smart man on the hydrodipping. I don't know how many damn times I painted my Brown PoundR to get it right!!!!! I have to apollogize to gundoc for going way off the topic though. Ha ha.. Seems like that happens in the Winchester collectors forum though. A bunch of good ol boys talking guns.. One of the reasons I like it here..

Indeed, we are now far away from this thread's starting point... similar to how I like to hunt!

I am thinking of using a Kryptec camo pattern. I like the pattern, but haven't yet decided on a color...

Hmmm. Ok, that's way different than I was imagining..

You can say it... you won't hurt my feelings. My personal preference is for the "spiderweb" paint effect Weatherby puts on their Accumark rifles, but I haven't found anyone who can reproduce it.

OK, I'll say something about the Kryptec camo pattern. READ BSA's SIG LINE!

I had some wittier stuff, but I'll roll with that.

Now, will somebody please get a hold of some receivers, make some measurements and get this train back on the track . . .

I have a Winchester model 70 that I converted to 340 Wby when brand new and that I am now converting, or trying to convert, back to 338. It was. 338 win mag originally. I will send a few pictures if I can figure out how. Not sure that it will help you, but you may find it interesting.

I found a used 338 WIn Mag barrel and had I gunsmith clean it up and mount it this week. So I can't actually chamber the 340 rounds

Here is the magazine box without the rear block. A little hard to get a clean measurement, but I think about 3.65"

Here is the COAL - just a smig under 3.6". They do not work well in the magazine and often hang up.

A couple more. These are 250 gr partitions

Will not eject unfired cartridge

For mine, the original smith notched out the ejector so the rounds could slide up underneath it, then the bolt (sometimes) pushes them into the chamber. Often it just slides over them. I think they would eject at the same point in the bolt throw as original, but it will not eject unfired rounds.

You can imagine my displeasure when I started reloading and the Nosler manual puts max load 250 gr partition in the 338 Win Mag less then 100 fps below the weatherby....from a 24" barrel. I am sure that someone has a better solution than the original gunsmith, but it's not worth it to me. Obviously there is a way to do it if Winchester chambers the same length of action in 375 H&H, 300 Wby, 416 rem. They obviously have parts that work. I think for a 340 build, a rebarrel job of a rifle originally chambered in one of those rounds would have worked better

For me, after a decade or two of experience, 100 fps is not worth it and I should have left well enough alone. I have a 338 barrel back on it, new gunsmith says it works fine, shoot it, but after messing with it again today, I think I want to go back to original mag box, ejector, bolt stop......if I can just find the dang follower. I will be calling Winchester next week.

Here is picture of notched ejector

One thing I would say is that the new gunsmith fired the rifle with some Hornady 225gr sst super performance ammo, and he said that there was about 1/16 inch clearance in this magazine. So, I am kind of old school on my bullets, but have heard a lot of talk about newer bullets and long magazines. So I may leave it alone until I have a chance to load 338 win mag for it and to see how it works. BUT I am pretty sour on the hole experience and think I want to go back to as original as possible. I have three other New Haven M70s - a stainless featherweight 7mm Mag (fwt stock, normal barrel contour), 25-06 sporter, both of which I love, and a 243 stainless featherweight that I recently picked up and am very excited about. I am pretty excited to turn this on into a functional 338 as well - it's been a long time coming.

Sorry for droning on - I hope it is helpful.

Not droning at all, Slope77, and thanks for posting all the pictures.

I suspect you didn't have ejection issues because of the notched ejector causing ejection to begin in the same place as the original chambering as opposed to rearward another 1/4" or so as with a "long" mangums (Which I think with a shorter receiver bridge to facilitate ejection beginning farther to the rear.) I thought about trying a notched ejector myself, but I was concerned that it might cause trouble if you needed to reload in a hurry. From your (Slope77) experience, it seems it might have caused issues picking up a round from the top of the magazine as well.

I suspect you need more barrel length for the .340 Weatherby to significantly outperform the .338 Win. Mag. I'm not sure how lighter bullets would affect the difference between the two. Although the .300 Weatherby was available in the Classics, it was not available in the configuration I wanted. Similar to your conclusions, I didn't feel terribly disadvantaged going with the .300 Win. Mag.

I'm still hoping someone will measure some Classic receivers, bolt cut to the front of the receiver bridge. Also, my original question of why the Pre '64 H&H rifles (.300 & .375) didn't seem to have ejection issues remains unanswered.

I read the last page and reread the first page. I did not reread the entire thread; this laptop is temperamental. I measured as well as visually inspected the ejection port (side view) on an original pre 64 Win 70 in 30-06 and also the same in 375 H&H. The ejection port in the 375 is .10 larger than the 30-06; 3.13" vs 3.23". The top of the receiver ring at the front near the serial number appears shorter on the 375. The 375 has a definite slant from top to bottom compared the 30-06. The very bottom of the ejection port at the stock line appears similar for both guns.

In other words the cutouts that Roger Rule are referring to are on the side of the ejection port not the top modifications, the forward notch and removed clip slot/contour for loading.

This is why the same ejector and bolt stop travels work for 3.4 and 3.6 length cartridges on the pre 64 Win 70.

GunDoc,
I don't know just what measurement you are looking for here, as I don't know what the term "bolt cut" means. However, I measured the length of the ejection ports on a pair of 70 Classics I have hanging around the premises. On a Classic Stainless .338WM (standard magnum action) the ejection port measures 3.118". A Classic Stainless .300 Weatherby Mag (full-length magnum or express action) the ejection port measures 3.373". The express action has the front of the rear bridge relieved to allow the longer ejection port, and as a consequence has the .330" scope base screw spacing. No ejection problems on any of my Classics, but then mine haven't been modified. Hope this helps.