Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats 6.5-300Win & 7-308Norma

I found the .300 kodiak thread interesting.
Questions on a couple of older wildcat customs I bought. I'm wondering weather it would be better to re chamber them or not?
I thought having the wildcats would be cool but.. Given that I'm going to halve to buy new brass anyway. That I would be better off having brass properly head stamped. And that the last time I checked the local Sports Mans Warehouse. the cheapest and most abundant factory cartridges were 264Win. I almost bought the 100 rounds they had without having anything to shoot them in.
At this point I do not have the rifles out of hock yet. So I'm just taking W A Guesses on the chambers.
Looking at the specs. I thought a 264 factory might chamber in the 6.5 but no go. This one is a very slick feeling savage 110. Should I re chamber and set the barrel back to 264Win? Is there A 6.5STW? Could the chamber be cleaned to something like that? Or is cutting the barrel a moot point with a re chamber anyway? Thoughts?
Should the 7 go to 7REM? It is a 725REM that has been converted to left hand operation. Thoughts.

30 cal to 6.5 isn't going to happen......just get yourself a new barrel and chamber up a cartridge that will last a while!

Yes there is a 6.5 STW but dies are expensive and barrel life would be short for very minimal velocity gain assuming it is a normal barrel length like 24" or 26". The set back and rechamber to 264 WM is feasible assuming there is enough shank length on the barrel given the way Savages are threaded.

The 7-308 Norma to 7mm mag setback and re-chamber is also a practical conversion.

Thanks for the replies


This one is a 6.5 in a 300WM case. I'm thinking he went with the longer 300WIN case, set the shoulder back, and gained a longer neck. From what a factory 264WM has. That's the only reason I can come up with. I'm thinking the same on the 7-308Norma.It could have been built between introduction of the 308Norma and the 7REM But not the case with the 6.5 since the 264 pre dated 300.

If the rifles were mine, I would have the 6.5 re done to 264 WinMag. That round is about perfect for the 6.5 bore in my opinion and a whale of an excellent long range deer rifle round.

the 7mm.... that is the easy one. A simple re chamber will get you a 7mm Mashburn Super or a very similar 7mm/300 WinMag. That one also is, in my view, the perfect combination of powder capacity and performance for the 7mm Bore. Adding more gunpowder / case capacity above what the 7 Mashy allows does not seem to give much in the way of real world velocities. I sure do like my 7mm Mashburn Super, a LOT.

There is a 6.5-300 Wby and a 264 Brooks on the 257 Wby case and there was a 6.5 Mashburn Super mag (same case specs as the 7mm Mashburn Super but in 264). PTG may be able to change the neck of the 7mm Mashburn to the 6.5 size but dies would be a problem. Randy

Thanks for the info fellas.