Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Rechamber to Ackley Improved?

I have a Contender Carbine barrel in 7x30 Waters. I would like to get it opened up to the Ackley Improved version of the cartridge. I have flirted with renting a reamer and doing it myself by hand, but I am hesitant.

Can anyone recommend a gunsmith who would be able to perform the work? ...any resident 'Smiths?

Hired Gun is here.

I don't think this is possible unless the barrel is pulled off the lug.
The Ackley chamberings are generally .004" shorter than their original chamberings thus would not work.
Get a good gunsmith to pull the lug and rechamber and then reweld it to the barrel then your good to go.

As the 7X30 is a rimmed cartridge, there is no concern with poking in an AI reamer to open up the body of the round. That said after having had a contender chambered in an improved 30-30 based chambering I can't recommend them due to short brass life. No matter what I did in fire forming and sizing brass I'd get three firings before incipient case head separation and then to the trash bin with brass.

I'd consider something based on the .225 win, .307 win or .444 marlin for better parent brass.

Mike Bellm would be the guy, though I'm not sure if he's still working on contender barrels.

That's why it's better to have it headspace on the shoulder and not the rim.

I set my dies for the brass to headspace on the shoulder. But the combination of the springy contender action and weak 30-30 brass resulted in short brass life.

I hear you on the Contender action, though headspacing on the shoulder with the first firing in a barrel that wasn't setback would be a trick.

Neck up and create a false shoulder. Might take some experimentation to get it just right so the action will still lock up.

cant point you towards anyone but can give you some information. 30/30 brass sucks for the most part. I did this for a client on a contender years ago so it if from a faded memory. the case headspaces on the rim and reamers are ground with that as a parameter. here is how it went. check the headspace in the gun and it was within spec. I made a washer to fit over the reamer body but not over the rim out of .015 shim stock. this allowed the chamber body, neck, and throat to be cut without altering the factory headspace, ie: the rim counterbore. I believe the client ended up making cases from .375 Winchester brass and necking it down so it ended up headspacing on the shoulder and the brass was stronger so it lasted longer. I also recall that he had two sizing dies, one for partial sizing and one for when he Had to bump the shoulder back. in the end he wasn't real happy with the whole thing as the action limited his hot rodding .

I did a 30-30 to AI by hand in a Contender barrel. I had no issues, but I do not run the sizing die down to the shelholder. I don't shoot it that much so with the brass supply that I have, I have never loaded them more than twice. For fireforming w/o setting the barrel back I would load long enough to jam the bullet into the lands. I have found that T/C's always shoot better this way, anyway.
The Waters is kinda already improved so I don't know how much you will gain. You'll never have to trim your brass again and nobody else will have one - so the cool factor will be there.

As stated earlier, a 7 Bower on the 307 case might be a better option. My 6.5 Bower kills everything I point it at.

Sounds like a "sell it, and buy a real gun" proposition to me, but then I'm simplistic...

How much velocity do you expect to gain? The 7-30 Waters has pretty minimal taper as-is and there is not that much neck length to play with.

Based on the difference between the 30-30 and 30-30AI I would guess in the range of 4grs of capacity. Which gives you a 9% gain over the base 7-30. I really don't have experience with the capacity gain in a 30-30 case. I would assume in the range of a 1% velocity for 4% capacity that an 06 case gives you. (At equal pressure) So that is around 50fps.

Hey I spent years building AIs and other improved type wildcats. If you want one go for it. Just have the right expectations. As to rechambering by hand. I wouldn't.

The 7-30 Waters offers a performance improvement over the 30-30, and is already an improved case design...considering the lower pressure operating range of the round, I wouldn't expect much more to be gained.