Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Ruger 7 mag to .375 or .416 Ruger

Then it doesn't really feed fine, does it?

The M70 Winchester having a cone breech, a la Springfield, has an extractor cut in that breech
that may have a sharp edge or corner.
That may snag a cartridge on feeding.
Polishing, beveling, or breaking any less than smooth surfaces there is a must.

Yes,
The early M77 MkII that has the lip on the bottom
of the boltface,
the "weak sister" lip.
That lip can be machined off to turn the pushfeed into CRF.
When I was living in Eagle River, AK, in the early 1990s
a gunsmith named Kelly Olson did one for me.
Flawless, on a .338 WinMag.

At this point it does, as after some fixes it feeds fine. The problem occurred with Hornady brass. I forgot to mention that I also chamfered the chamber mouth, (just enough to knock the edge off) and haven’t had any issues with Winchester brass. So yeah, since I can’t make it puke now I’d say it’s fixed.

i have a brand new Ruger #1 in 416 Ruger that has never been shot your rifle and some cash we could make a trade maybe ?

The Ruger stainless Mark II, 300 Winchester feeds my 375 Ruger 270 grain Barnes LRX handloads to the point of no-go very smoothly. I just cycled a few magazine fulls through it.
This is the 2nd generation Mark II, with CRF.

The rifle I had when I started this thread has already found a new home. Sorry.



Excellent info. Thanks

I just this morning tried to run some .416 Ruger 400 Hornady DGS and DGX through a 7 Mag Winchester Classic stainless. Did not want to feed the top round at all. Rounds #2 and #3 fed great.

Where does the first round hang up?

This makes no sense that Hornady brass caused feeding problems and Winchester brass does not,
unless the handloading techniques boogered the brass.

I'm not offering any explanation for it, just reporting what all I changed.

It seemed tight in the magazine and then when I used enough force to get it to move forward the tip stopped on the left side of the breech. Same story with some TTSX handloads. May be as simple as a new follower/mag spring but I am not going to build on that particular rifle so not too worried about it. Seems the factory magnum Ruger actions/mag box/followers are closer to working with the .375/.416 rounds with minimal fuss.

Thread winner. Straight to the point of the question, informative, simple.

I agree with others the 7mm opened up to either 416 or 375. It would be the easiest to convert and easiest to find brass.

My son is an Alaskan guide. His outfitter he worked for, a very knowledgeable gun man, had installed a Ruger factory .375 Ruger barrel on a tang safety Ruger 77 7 mag. for my son to use in his guiding. Son brought that rifle along with us on a Kodiak Island bear hunt as a back-up rifle. On that hunt we realized that he'd have to use the rifle the following day to search for a wounded bear. That evening in our tent, I asked him if the rifle fed reliably so we took some rounds to see. They did NOT. I believe they were reloads. So based on that example of 1, I would say feeding COULD be an issue. Just my 2 cents worth.

Sounds like a terrible time to discover that! Hope you didn’t need it!

There was a lot of knowledge not put into practice before that day of realization.

One thing with the 416 ruger hawkeye or mk ll's is there is very little taper to the brass. Combine that with a sheet metal mag box that can be distorted or bent, simply by torqueing the action screws and it will cause problems.

Example: a 416 ruger in a boat paddle stock. If you didn't relieve the mag box before torqueing down the action screws, the cartridges won't set flush against the bottom of the rails.

416 ruger needs a perfectly straight mag box, and material must be removed from the bottom of the mag box, so that it's only held in place when those action screws are torqued.

You may even have to tune the mag box flat, if has been distorted.

Like many of you, I watch the feeding of my rifles like a hawk. When I'm done, they're to feed any fkn bullet I choose, no excuses.

The easy way out, is when your sloppy jalopy fkn jams (bear guide or not), you go and blame it on the profile of the dgx bullet or some other bllsht excuse.

I bought a Brown Whelen pre-64 Win 70 at a gun show. When I got home cartridges wouldn't feed. There were more problems than I wanted to deal with, I had the barrel set back and chambered for a 35 Whelen and the problem was resolved.
I cannot imagine taking a rifle hunting without testing it and the ammo at a rifle range. I do know people that only shoot one shot to see if the bullet lands where it did the year before and that's all they do. I think that's better than doing it with a rifel they never shot before though.

About those sheet metal mag boxes getting distorted,
recoil battering of bullets into front of box
can put some dimples in it that
might snag bullets and cause a jam.
Ruger, Winchester, CZ, Weatherby, etc.
I used to get gunsmith to solder a steel plate onto front of box.
Then I discovered that I could epoxy a plate on there myself.
Tight epoxy bedding contact allover front of box can help, but is a bit fussy.
If you have a lot of rifles needing it, fussy is not good.
Old dimpled box fronts can be hammered flat again,
or replaced in toto.
Best not to fire rifle with ammo in the mag box until the reinforcement is done.

I rebarreled my left hand 7mm remington stainless mark2 to 375 Ruger with no other modifications and it feeds perfectly