Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Browning A Bolt Rebarrel Advice.

My son is inheriting a stainless left hand A-bolt from a hunting buddy of ours who recently passed away.

The catch is, its a .270 and he already has one. So need advice as to best route to a 300 WM. Rebarrel or rebore?

Ball park estimates and 'smith recommendations appreciated.

Thanks,
Bob.

There are some obstacles to your plan. The bolt face is wrong. so you'll have to get the bolt face opened up or replace with a new bolt of the correct bolt face. The existing magazine will not be correct. Then there is the cost around getting a new barrel. Every time I go through the process of evaluating a rebuild or replace question I come to the conclusion it is easier to sell the older gun and buy a new one.

Just rebarrel to 30-06 and then all you will need is a barrel

Maybe a real 'smith can chime in on this, but from my understanding, the A-Bolt is one action you don't want to fool around with rebarreling. The original barrels are apparently installed with red Loctite on the threads, and there is a risk of damaging the receiver when trying to remove it.

Thanks for the replies folks.

Yeah 30-06 would probably be the way to go.

The rebarrel would be preferable to trading guns for sentimental reasons.

I've read about the loctite situation, sounds like some 'smiths have found a way around it.

Thanks again.

My gunsmith guy does very credibile benchrest stuff. In his words he tried once to do an A-bolt he said never again they are crap!

Keep this one, sell the other and buy what you want.

That's not correct - just another Internet myth. Most any good gunsmith can re-barrel an A-Bolt.

Good advice.. They do not come apart easy but with the right tools, The howa on other hand can be well not nice. Your rifle will probably have a 20tpi shank.

i too have heard about the lock tight but havnt seen it as of yet. only done 3 or 4 a bolts.

I rebarrel a lot of A-Bolts. The only one I ever had a thread problem with was a very early 1980's "Stainless Stalker" in 375 H&H. It was ALMOST a big enough nightmare to make me rethink my chosen career path. Ended up hack sawing the barrel from the receiver, machining out the remaining shank from the receiver and cutting new receiver threads. Luckily I got back up on that horse and never looked back.

Though I've never looked at converting one over, the A-Bolt has separate bolt heads which can EASILY be swapped out, and magazines are easily changed. And since there isn't much voodoo involved in pulling today's barrels, it's very doable, if a person wants to spend the money on the rebarrel.

The only real problem with the stainless A-bolts is because of stainless' tendency to gall. Stainless steels have a real affinity for themselves and will weld themselves together. When I remove the barrel from a stainless A-bolt, I always heat the joint with a heat gun and feed some gear oil into the scope mount hole to lubricate the threads prior to removing the barrel.
If it wasn't for the trigger, I could like the A-bolt action. It's really not bad. GD

Me, personally, I don't have a problem with the A-Bolt trigger. In fact, with a good tune up, they can be made very crisp, rivaling some of the best aftermarket triggers of the same weight class. I would like to see them built out of something a little better than pot metal. Generally speaking though, most factory triggers can be made to outperform their aftermarket counterparts, again, in the same weight class.

Malm has barreled one for me, and it was top notch work.

Malm,
I think the trigger works OK but it is a bit fragile. I've had two come in with the trigger lever broken at the pivot. The thing is, with so many good, simple, rugged, trigger mechanisms and attachment methods out there, there is little reason to design something different (Ruger should pay attention here too!). GD

GD,

Yup, I've had broken levers come in. I've often scratched my... head, wondering why the folks at Browning went so cheap on their fire control materials. I guess someone had to find a use for all those old Holley carburetors that are littering the junk yards.