Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 220 Swift Build... a Little input please?

I have a couple of barrel blanks, already contoured to make me a 220 Swift.

problem I am having is what action to put it on..

I have a barrel with a one in 12 twist and one with a one in 9 twist.

I want to use this for long distance hunting instead of high volume varminting.

Questions are..

1. If use with the fast twist barrel, can this be comfortable in short action such as a model 70 or Model 700, or even a Ruger 77? or would it be more appropriate to use say a Mauser action with it's intermediate length?
object here would be use on the high side of 70 grain Speers and the longer Barnes bullets...

2. option 2 would be using the slower twist barrel, with Speer 70 grain and Sierra 63 grainers being the largest bullets used in that barrel. Would the short action of any of the above manufacturers be adequate?

I have available actions in short actions from Winchester Model 70s, the Rem 700, the Ruger 77, & Savage...
and long actions in the Savage, Marlin Xl 7, Rem 700, Ruger 77, Plus several Mauser and a Hasqvarna action.

any experiences and inputs would be great.

I am more than deluxed out on 223s and 22.250s.

This is sort of a project I always planned to do and it has never happened. So I need to get it out of my system, or end up finding myself a new love affair.

Seafire
Does it have to be a Swift?
If were thinking of a Swift I'd do a 220 Rocket version(220 AI)Just to drop the Swifts shoulder angle.To much streaching and trimming for my taste.To much like work.
Otheriwise the swift case size should make a dandy launch platform for the heavy stuff.Im thinking a SA would work fine.
Ken Howell had a over capiticy 22 that was supposed to lower chamber pressure.Might be worth a look.
Theres the 243 Middlestead.
Theres the 22 CHeetah
Or you could roll your own.
308 case necked down to 22,min body taper, 30 degree shoulder.The 308 Seafire.Kinda has a nice ring to it.
Only thing I can tell you is that for long range, Accuracy is King.You have to hit it,before you can kill it.
You didnt mention if you were going to use it for deer hunting or not.Should work fine if you use a bullet that dont come unglued.For everthing else theres MKs and VLDs.

Heres a good video for you of some chuck hits.I have never used this guy.But I like some of his ideas.Play the link at the bottom.
http://www.richardscustomrifles.com/huntingvideos.htm

dave

Seafire-my initial thoughts would be to take a look at the Swift AI and the 22/6mm. And I'd go with the quicker twist.

For actions, others would know better than me on this but my guess would be the M70 short and take the spacer out if it has one. If not, then I'd take a look at the 700 or the 77.

Funny thing here, I've an old tang safety 270 that's gonna get the very same treatment one of these days. Thinking it'd be a wonderful gun for my Grandson to start with on deer/lopes.

Keep us in the loop as to what you decide to do.

Dober

Seafire, I have owned Swift's in Ruger 77, Rem.700 short actions,a rebarreled Mark X Mauser, pre 64 Mod.70, rebarreled Rem.700 long action. The main problem I ever had was with the rim of the semi-rimmed case getting behind another case in the mag. and causing feeding problems. The Rugers were factory produced Swifts and Ruger made provisions for the rim in their mag, all worked well. The short 700 gave the most trouble as it was easy to push one rim behind another during loading the mag. A long throat in the chamber can make the short actions I used a problem due to rounds to long for the mag. Which was part of the short 700's problem, and a couple of the Ruger's. The Mauser worked well with no mods to mag or bolt, same with the long 700. The mod.70 was a factory Swift and gave no problems. Often thought about building a Swift on the Sav.110 short action as the earlier models seemed to be a tad longer than most short actions. If I were to build on a short action I would take some measurements and use the one with the most mag. room, especially for a fast twist barrel that I intended to use some of the longer heavy bullets in. Have always liked the Swift and tried one improved Swift and for me it became a toss up between fire forming brass or trimming brass. Decided the standard cartridge was the way to go. Good luck with your project.

Thanks for the feedback so far guys.

My motivation here is basically, the Swift is one cartridge I have never worked with. I am more motivated by older traditional cartridges, than newer wildcats. ( For instance, after a Swift, I am looking at either a Donaldson Wasp, or a Zipper on a Mauser action, and the 29 inch barrel that are used in older reloading manuals.)

The rifle would not be primarily a deer hunting rifle. I might try it as such, but it wouldn't be its primary mission in life.
It's primary mission in life, would me learning what a Swift is all about.

My major motivation is one guy here in town has a beautiful shaped old Model 54 in 220 Swift, that belonged to his grand dad. It was bought new in 1941 supposedly, and his grand dad used it for hunting everything.. deer to elk and evidently got one almost every year with it.

Barrel contour looks like a Heavy magnum ( say a 458) profile.
I really like that rifle, and he enjoys showing it to me and watch me lust over it every time he runs into me at the range.
you can just feel the history of that rifle.

With the number of 22 caliber rifles I have, I could also just bore out one to 220 Swift...
Just off season, I seem to be a 22 cal junkie.. fun to play with the 22 bore. It cured me of my 6 mm bore addiction.LoL..

as a quick edit here.. what I think would be ideal, with the above thought.. is if I could run down a Savage Predator in 223 with a one in 9 twist and a 24 inch barrel, and rechamber it, I think then I'd have exactly what I was looking for! I love the barrel profile of that package, and the weight of it, with the synthetic stock.

Dave,

think we should all pitch in and send a copy of that video to our good friends over at PETA?

The shock on their faces, priceless!

Nothing i'd rather do than launch a 10 lb. woodchuck skyward.
Im thinking they use a 300 WSM with a 125 BT at 4100 or some such.I should build one just for something to do.It would be fun.
Heres more for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IutnN_LAMvI
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0XCOPEIWgM&feature=related


dave

Watched my partner hit a chuck with a matchking out of a 300 Ultra mag. I continue to invite him along if only to see the results - sad thing is he never gets to see the impact and I'm not willing to shoot the Ultra. There were three of us and the two spotters agreed on the 6 foot vertical estimate but differed on the number of flat spins, somewhere near 2 complete spins with parts flinging. The shot was a tad low but the chuck was lying on an angled flat rock.

Hi John -

I've had a couple Swifts in short 700s and 1 in a Ruger #1. It works fine in the short action, you shouldn't be able to get into mag length issues (2.8" box) with conventional 60 grain or lighter bullets suitable for that 1-12" twist.

I'm less sure about the 1-9" twist ... I THINK you could throat it long enough for 80 grain bullets seated out that they wouldn't fit within mag length, but I'm fairly sure you could seat them deep enough to feed, throated to match, without eating too far into case capacity.

If you want it, do it ... it will work.

Tom

I just put a 1 in 9" Swift together on a short Ruger M77 that was previously a 22-250. I put in a 308 length follower, spring, and mag box from Ruger and E-gunparts (neither company had all the parts, or the 220 Swift specific parts). I specified a "standard length" throat. I tried some 75 grain A-maxes, and they fit in the mag and feed just fine at 2.9" OAL. Hope this helps!

Love the Swift. I've had 2 (one a custom M98 and the other a Ruger 77 - which I still have). Great rifles and cartridge; accurate and long range.

I've got two Rugers TS models. One heavy, one light. The light one is my constant companion. 39 gr 4064, 50 gr Nosler sb.

Seafire;

FWIW, I just spec'd the .220 Swift and the 90 grain JLK, which is the longest .224" bullet I know of. Seated all the way out to having only .200" bearing surface in the case neck (the least I'd want to think about), the COAL should be 3.050".

If you stay with something that'll give you a mag box length of 3.1" or so, you'll be fine throating and seating to the max with the .220 Swift and just about any bullet you can find in the .224" range.

The 2.8" mag box is likely going to limit you to 69 grain SMKs and down.

I have owned at least 5 swifts over the years and the ones i built on the 700 actions always had a feeding problems so i converted them to single shots and for groundhog hunting they worked fine. If i was going to build another swift i would use a single shot action or i would build a 22-250 Ack Imp with the 1&9 . The Swift case just doesn't take to feeding well from a magazine. The 22-250 Ack will do anything the Swift will do and a little more for what you are wanting.

Yep. But, he wants a Swift to play with.

The Swift is a GOOD catridge and for nostalgia sake, I like it!

Thanks for the input guys.. I am leaning toward using a Husqvarna action I have that is currently chambered in a 270...

The former owner is a deceased Doctor friend, who always wanted to do a Swift also..

So I think in his memory, that might be the best route.

it will have a 'cool factor' to it anyway.

Enjoy the Swift and keep your doctor friend in your mind as you shoot it.

I have a Swift reamer and head-space gauges and will build me another if i ever come across a left hand singe shot action. Prefer a 40X if i can find one. Believe me I'm not knocking the Swift. The Swift is one of my all time favorite for long range varmint hunting , just telling him about a better option in a repeating rifle.

This will be a repeater, but truth be known, I feed most of my rifles if shooting varmints etc, as a single shot.

If I like the Swift case, I will ream one of my heavy barrel rifles in 22 caliber out to a Swift.

a real favorite varmint rifle of mine is a Model 70 short action, that I have a 28 inch stainless barrel on, with a heavy magnum contour, chambered in 22.250.

I have a benchrest follower in it, where I shoot it as a single shot in the field. Love that out shooting prairie dogs at long range. It carries a standard 6.5 x 20 Leupold on top.

For accuracy load, it pretty much is fed a diet of 52 grain Speer HPs, on top of a load of 30 grains of Rl 7 or H 322. Honorable mention also goes to its original starting load of 25 grains of IMR 4198, which surprisingly gave an MV of 3500 fps out of that barrel. Just the RL 7 and H 322 loads proved to be even more accurate.

The Swift would just be a little more of a good thing.