Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats A Teddy and a Panda

Old builds that im having redone.

Building Dashers for Ridgway.
12 pound on the Panda.
17 pound on the Teddy.

Both actions were worked over at kelbly's.
New bolts.In black nitride.

I did not ask for and did not expect kelbly's. to polish them

But they did.

I toyed with the idea of porting the Panda.
So I could have a left load right eject action.
It can be done.I asked.
When I asked if the Teddy could be ported.
Ian said that it could.... but that it would like molesting a classic car.
In the end I could not have them milling holes in my babies....

dave

Love the old Teddy action, you don't see many of them around any more. what was wrong with the original bolts ????? was the cost of the new ones reasonable ?????
Just wondering because I am having BAT make me a new bolt because I need a different size boltface, the new bolt from them is about 2/3 the price of a new action.

There wasn't anything wrong with the original bolts.
If you notice the serial numbers on the actions it will tell you how old they are.
The older actions had shorter bolt handles than the new ones. I wanted longer and I wanted the same for all..
dave

Kelblys is 5 miles from me. Nice guys and a nice range too

Always good stuff from Kelbly's....love the Teddy. A pal of mine has three LH Teddys

Five Pandas and two Kodiaks, here.

Not in my league, but the Ridgeway shoots are awesome.. You a lucky if you can shoot there.. The only one I attended was as an observer.. The event was a varmint shoot..

I thought 6BRA was the new hot round???

Nice actions!

Love the older Pandas, the new ones not so much.

Spent a lot of time behind a Teddy. Well spent.

Nice looking actions, Dave.
When I initially saw the Teddy and Panda subject line, I thought you might be getting cuddly soft on us.

Thanks.
The 6mm BR ackley improved is the "new" thang.
Im all set up for the Dasher.
Converted a old woodchuck gun just to blow cases.
The BRA is simple.
The Dasher more work.
dave

If you don't mind my asking.
What is it about the new actions you don't like.
I shot a dual port panda last summer with a B&A trigger on a 17pound 300WSM.
Very nice I thought.
dave

If you saw one you would know immediately. Before maybe 2010~ the standard finish was the brushed/matte type, I think it was vapor blasted or something and the bolt was polished. You could pay them 50-75 bucks for them to polish it like what they did for you. New ones, it looks like they use heavy sand to blast a very rough finish on the action AND the bolt. They are very rough. And I have heard (not first hand info) they won't polish them any more, you have to find someone outside to do it. A friend bought one a couple years ago, I put a barrel on it and stocked it. I was amazed at the roughness of the whole thing, including the extractor. It wouldn't reliably snap over the case rim. The sliding plate would not smoothly slide back and forth. Hang on to your older models.

First one done.

One more to go.
Been smiling ever since I picked it up this morning.
dave

dave

As usual.
Randy did a fine job.
It was supposed to be a Dasher.
Things kinda got changed along the way... best laid plans....

dave

I think the bolt handles on my Borden actions are a bit too long. Who am I to question? I would much prefer standard Remington 700 handles.

For bench guns, a longer bolt handle is a great thing. Makes bolt lift much easier. The Pandas I've had, including the one I have now, you can just lift the bolt with one finger. I found an older '88 Teddy and bought it, but it had a short handle, almost an inch shorter than my Panda. I called Kelbly and was told the Teddy had different length handles over the years. They wanted something like 80 bucks to replace it. So I pulled the aluminum ball off the end and made my own extension/ball and screwed it on. Looks nice and works like the Panda now.