Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Kimber ascent based custom .358

Has anyone thought of re-barreling a .308 ascent to .358 Winchester?

I'm thinking a 20" barrel and 2x Leopold light weight scope.

Who would you have do the work?

Sounds like a good project. Redneck here on the site has done up some Kimbers, I think.

I think you would have to go with SAS�s Lilja custom contour to add a little more to the contour...cutting at 20" like you said would help as well. I've got a 6.5 lb all up .358 that I love....at sub 6 lbs it might be more than I could love!

Flutes may run into trouble with the larger bore... Better mouse trap may be a rebore of a standard montana. Could be had used in 308 etc and money saved would have you in a 358 for the cost of a new standard montana..

Not sure what if anything would net you something for the additional $ of the ascent on this project. Think if you bobbed the montana to 20" you may have good meat at muzzle for a 358.

W

I agree with Woofer. I just can't see the cost. Ascent's are hard to find, much less cheap(er) used donors. Unless you already have one.

I'm lost on the appeal of a 5 pound mountain 358 Win.

But if it's was floats you I'd JCMCUBIC's idea with the Lilja contour that SAS worked out.

How do I find out more about the lilja sas contour?

I'm running a Montana in 338 Federal with 2.5 ultralight leupold at 5.25#......friends here lined me up with aluminum trigger guard and Ti bold handle.....

This is not a primary hunting rifle but a handy rifle with the weight/convenience of a large handgun.....I prefer the rifle as I can't hit shyte with a non-shoulder fired gun.....and I don't like short, fat bullets.

For my purposes, it would wear a sturdy peep sight if I knew of some worth installing.

BTW.....The above combo shoots very well with Federal 210 NPs.

Lilja mod84m barrel contour

I looked into converting a montana into a 358 prior to finding a good deal on a ruger. Sounds like a great project!

You'll have to rebarrel to a larger diameter barrel and rechannel some on the stock to fit the larger diameter barrel. Personally you could just do it with a Montana and be money ahead with a rebarrel and stock channel work still than just getting started purchasing a mountain ascent.

I am having a 270 Kimber Montana bored out by JES to 338-06 this winter. Should be a fun project, but I am keeping the Kimber Montana original barrel and contour so no barrel channel work on the stock is required. There isn't enough "meat" on the .560" barrel to have a .358" hole on the end.

I would be looking at this contour. Generally, a minimum desired barrel sidewall thickness is somewhere around 0.130" remaining in 416R. SAS's barrel contour measures 0.583" at 28", cut back to 22" it measures 0.617" at the muzzle. At 22" length in .358 bore, that leaves 0.617"-0.358"= 0.259"/2= 0.1295" of side wall left at the muzzle.

That barrel contour measures 0.710" 5.5" from the breech end and 0.583" at 28". The barrel tapers 0.127" across 22.5" or about 0.0056" per inch of barrel. If you cut that barrel to 20" finished you will have a muzzle diameter of 0.628" with a muzzle sidewall thickness of 0.135".