Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Browning Rebarrel Question

I am asking on behalf of a friend but are the "newer" A-Bolts or X-Bolts able to be rebarreled? My friend was told that the new models have a much tighter thread pattern on the barrel/receiver and it makes it near impossible to rebarrel to an after market barrel. Does this make sense??? According to him, this was told too him by a very reputable, well known rifle builder/g'smith.

For what its worth, I had an older (10 years old) A-Bolt in .22-250 rebarreled with no problem.

Any ideas on this question?

I've not had any X bolt's here to rebarrel, but I have rebarreled more than my share of A Bolts and there's nothing overwhelming about those.

Thanks...After talking to my friend again today, he was told that the new X-Bolt (he has one in .280) barrels not only had a very tight thread pattern, but the barrels were "pinned" into the receiver and it made it very difficult (if not immmposible) to change out. I am not a 'smith but this is what we were told.

I would be suspect of that claim. If the factory put it together and there are no outward signs of welding, they can be taken apart. One way or the other.

I was told that you have to heat the A-Bolt action with propane torch or heat gun since Browning glues the barrel threads in with Glue or Red Loctite. I believe the thread are 20 TPI on the tenion. One smith says they even glue the recoil lug to the barrel.

Someone is dishing out bad info. The early Stainless Stalkers could be a bit tricky to separate on occasion, but today's A-Bolt barrels and lugs come off just like any others. The BBR however is a different story.

Anything made in Japan seems difficult to remove. If I have a bad one I make a very small relief gut ahead of the action and the barrel comes right off.