Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Montana 8400 WSM rebarrel (SAUM)

Thinking about getting a new tube stuck on my 300 WSM Montana in 6.5 SAUM at some point and getting a bit more use out of the rifle.

Who would you have do it? Would you dupe the contour? I was thinking of a bit more weight out front on the tube and cutting it at 22-23".

Seems like it'd make a pretty solid backpack hunting rig...

Tanner

I'd go .600 @ 23", keeping the shank the same.

I've always thought the SAUM's and the 8400 were an ideal fit.

I have a couple Pacnors on Montanas and they shoot great. I would dupe contour and go 22" myself.

I've got a Model Seven in 7 SAUM with a 22" barrel and love it. I've read/heard that you could go from SAUM to WSM, but not WSM to SAUM. Either way, I'm interested in seeing the final product. Good luck.

Tanner, the 6.5 Saum is a great choice, I love the ones ive built. I built mine on m70 WSM actions and they have worked great with the longer mag boxes you can use the longer freebore reamer .120" and still have room in the mag box to chase the lands. personally I'm not a fan of short shank barrels, I like them to be 1.5" I have a #3 fluted cut at 25" and my brother has a bartlein #3 which is closer to a #4 cut to 24". I'm getting 3080fps with a 140hybrid and my brother is at 3030fps. Both are very accurate. We use the hornady 6.5 saum brass from Gap and its been doing pretty good about 6-7 firings, not as good as rem brass but we don't have to deal with necking down. Just load and shoot.

I think Brad's idea of 23" and 0.6 is good. I thought the factory barrel on my Kimber 300WSM was a little light.

I had Pacnor re-barrel a Kimber 7 WSM to 7 SAUM with those same dimensions. I had them dupe the contour out to the end of the forearm then taper to .600. Shoots good, as do the other Kimbers I've had them re-barrel. The thing I like about them is, they're turn-key. Including coatings now, if you need that.

I did the same thing with a local barrel maker, KS Arms, except that I had the factory dupe taper from the forearm to 0.600" at 24".

Well, it's true then.

Great minds do think alike. Except on that 24" thing, what's up with that?

I had a 300WSM Kimber that I got at a great price to do this very conversion. I was going to go with the modified factory contour from Lilja so I didn't have to modify the stock. Ended up selling it to help pay for drawing two limited entry tags in Idaho in the same year. Don't regret the trips, but should have kept the rifle anyway...

Tanner,
I'd send it to George Gardner and probably use a #2 or #3 Rock Creek or Brux. 23". He might not want to build on a blind mag, though...
In fact, I'm calling dibs on the rifle you're considering building!

Maybe they changed their policy, but last time I checked, GAP wouldn't do a re-barrel on my Kimber action.

Killjoy

LOL, if they changed their policy I want to know about it!

.920" at 29". 12 twist.

24" is the new 23".

And mine stayed a 7WSM, too.

Pretty sure he's already got one of those. .35 Remington, it's balls out.

I hunt the black timber. Needs to be 28".

Hutch

Because...???

I'm sure they have their reasons. But since you asked me, I'm gonna go with "because they don't have to."

I didn't think to ask them but if I had to guess, it's just what I said above--they have enough business doing what they're doing and they don't have to. Their main business (with bolt actions) is building and selling rifles using their own specs with M700 clones. Lots of gunsmiths pick and choose what kind of actions they'll build rifles on.

If you look at the actions they like to use, the Defiance Templar and the M700, they both have integral recoil lugs; Kimbers don't:

From a quick search: "An integral recoil lug is a benefit for the guy installing it, mitigating the need to line up and hold the lug in place during barrel installation. An integral lug also means fewer facets to machine and worry about squaring up."