Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Re-bore question for Mule Deer and other JES customers

What is the advantage of re-bore vs re-barrel other than the price? Just curious, thinking about 358 Winchester in the future and debating which way would be more accurate.

i had Jess rebore do a Ruger #1 and rebore the barrel to a 35 Whelen , i also before i shot this rebored i took it to a very fussy machinist who also does a lot of National bench rest rebarrel jobs for guys that have won National titles . this machinist used his bore scope as i also had done and said Jes rebore had done an excellent job. this Ruger #1 now a 35 Whelen shoots excellent ,i am very satisfied with his work. Pete53

Price is a primary reason. Another is to keep the original barrel profile. Perhaps it has express sights and a barrel band you’d like to keep. Keeping the original profile means no stock modifications to accommodate a new barrel if you didn’t have the profile duplicated.

In my limited experience, two rebores and having been around a half dozen fellow shooters who had rebores, I’ve not seen one that shot poorer after reboring. My 35 Whelen, originally a 1941 Winchester 70 30-06, shot well. Nothing spectacular but well enough. After Cliff Labounty rebored it to the Whelen, it thinks it’s a varmint rifle.

I had a Sedgley Springfield 30-06 with a really poor bore. It shot accurate enough but was really rough. JES rebored it to 375 Whelen and it shot about the same. No loss of accuracy but no noticeable gain.

IF you want to maintain the current barrel, it makes sense.

My re-bore job cost $350 in NOV.

During the same time I had a Rem 700 re-barreled with a Bartlein 2B, which cost $400 for the blank and just over $200 to fit it.

Normally I prefer to re-barrel, but in my case re-barreling a 7600 would have been much more expensive than the JES re-bore. There are a lot of reviews from guys that have gotten excellent accuracy from re-bores.

Does a JES rebore cost $450?

Nope, TYPO...$350.

I've had the same idea for some time but truth be told, I have to agree with Blu_Cs. The barrel is too thin for a rebore, even to .338".

I do have a plan though, where I take a Ruger M77 .358 Win. and take the barrel off and put it on the RSI properly trimmed to the 18.5" length. Open up the muzzle cap, replace the sights et. and I'll have a faux M77RSI. think the biggest problem would be inletting the stock for the "fatter" barrel. I have three RSIs in .308 Win., two being the nice and slim rifles they're supposed to be. One, number three is slightly fatter especially in the forearm and could possibly take the .358 barrel. I keep thinling about it but haven't gotten around to getting it done.

Short story on Ruger, the RSI in .358 Win. Back in1981 I was at the NRA convention and was looking at the RSI. I commented to a fellow who said he was the Ruger rep that I would love to have this rifle chambered to the .358 Win. He blew up like a bomb, said it would never happen, and was cussing up a blue streak when I just said FU and walked away. My wife was with me and said he represents the company???

I do have it on good notice that Bill Ruger did have a very short run of M77 RSI rifles made in .358 Win. strictly for friends Nd have seen photos of at least two. There also may be a few lunchbox specials out there as well.
PJ

I think mine was 300 a couple months back.

JES rebored my 1885 Highwall 3 or 4 years ago in a 5 groove 10 twist for $300.00. Very pleased

JES did my 35/30-30 (3 groove) and he did an awesome job.

sighting it in at 100 yards


i can do 1/2 - 3/4" at 100 yards with 5 shots off a bench. Well, i used to, before my eyes got funny and they said glasses, we need glasses!!!!

I sent him a Browning Safari to rebore. He's the only one that would do it, others wanted more thickness at the muzzle.
Fingers crossed.

What to what, Dennis?

35 Whelen is as big as i can go.
.575" muzzle

Have shown this one before, a shot out Pre-64 .243 FWT that JES turned into a .358 Win. I restored the rifle, recut the checkering, touched up the finish, glassed it, etc.

I even made some .358 Win brass from .243 brass, didn't split but three. Surprised me. Made more out of .308 brass and actually have some .358 headstamp cases.

Trijicon AccuPoint 3-9x40, duplex with green dot in Burris Signature rings. This pre-64 receiver wasn't drilled exactly true, so I used the eccentric ring inserts to utilize the optical center of the Trijicon.

And it shoots pretty good. This bullet, the 160 CEB Raptor. I also like the 178 Shock Hammer over RL-7.

DF

Nice

You did darned well with it DF. I’d had done the same thing.

Yeah, went from a 3” shooter to a sub inch shooter. And in a caliber and round I like better. And JES is a good bit less expensive than a new barrel. And I preserve the classic look.

Those Signature rings came in handy, truing up the receiver screw holes that were a tad off. Those inserts really grip the scope tube, ain’t gonna be moving around.

I tweaked the trigger to a crisp 2 1/2 # with no noticeable overtravel. Those old M-70 triggers can be adjusted to a really good pull, just takes some time and attention to detail.

Overall, turned into a nice deer rifle. Those big bullets do whack’em with authority. Not a real long range set up, but good out to 2-300 yds which works for where and what I hunt. I have other rifles for long stuff.

DF

Trex

I’d be interested in hearing how you 9.3x62 Springfield re-bore comes out. I have a “sporterized” 03-A3 that has an over size chamber that I’m thinking might be better.
In particular I’d be interested in how the modification works in a controlled feed action.

What does the barrel diameter need to be to make a 9.3x62?

Bugger, at the risk of looking like "that guy" that only posts his best groups on 24HCF, I'll share the story of my JES 9.3x62 rebored Springfield, which was a 1932 receiver (per online records) with a 1934 dated barrel. Plenty of beef in that barrel for the rebore. I got my barreled action back from JES and took it to the range. I had mounted a Leupold 4x Compact (which JB has taught me is actually about a 3.3X) in vintage Buehler mounts, and bedded the action and an inch or so of the barrel shank. I did a rough boresight and shot my very first group out of this rifle with Lapua 285 Mega factory ammo:


Nice! So I went right to my ladder I had loaded up to sneak up on Mule Deer's "250 AB, 60.5 Varget" load. These were the "dirt-cheap" SPS 250 AB seconds that they had a couple years ago. I had loaded three each of 58, 59, and 60 Varget, and four of 60.5. Keep in mind that between each of these groups, I was cranking on the friction dials of the old Leopold compact to get 'er dialed in.
58 Gr.

59 gr and 60 gr

So then I tried "the load"

But note that I am almost 100 FPS below John's velocities, and I reckon my lot of Varget is a little slower in this chambering than John's. So I ended up bumping it up to 62.5 before I got to John's velocity numbers. In the interim, I had done a bit of work with RL-15.5 and had loaded up a batch of 250 AB to the low 2600s for my 2022 elk hunt. They worked:

But after that, SPS loaded up a ton of the 250 E-Tips on their site and I grabbed a bunch, for those situations when a 250 AB "just might not be enough, LOL" I ran them up to the low 2600s with Varget, and they were easily giving me "minute of moose"

but at the end of the test string, I also shot three of my leftover 250 AB/RL-15.5 loads from last year's elk hunt (left target in the pic). The right target is the first of the three 250 E-Tip groups as I was dialing in the 4X compact to the new load.

So how did my JES rebore come out?
Good.

Cheers,
Rex