.300 WM to .308 Win

M

Medic88

Inactive
Hey Guys

So I recently bought a Rem 700 in 300 Win Mag. I have plans for it. Those include a Manners stock, Bartlein barrel or custom shop with decent out time.

I have this rifle worked out in my head and have done similar builds in .308 that I have sold for a moderate profit.

I was talking to some of our B4's and found out that the reason the M24 was done in a Long Action so that the Army could swap out to 300 win mag with a barrel change. What is the history behind this? I didn't notice when I wanted to build a NRA competition/tactical rifle that a lot of things are limited to .308 win. and I wanted a round that would reach out and touch some steel at Tactical matches. Example being that I missed a plate at 1340 that I ranged about right, but the rifle didn't have the umph and a guy running a 338 Edge smoked me. Thought being is it just as simple as a rebarreling and making sure that the rounds are seated to the rear of the magazine to convert 300 WM to .308 Win? That would be awesome in so many ways. Looking forward to getting schooled.
 
No, I bought a 300 Win Mag, WM for brevity, because it is a long range round, especially if you can recreate MK248 MOD 1 ammo. The US Army M24 is a .308 Win in a long action. The original thought process for this is that the LA could easily be converted into a .300 WM pretty easily. When they introduced the M110, the Army sent the M24's back to be converted over to the 300 WM. This gives the teams a 800m and a 1300m pairing that is showing great results in Afghanistan.

My question was if it is possible to go from a LA 308 to 300 WM, which is obviously possible since it is being done, if you could backwards compatible a 300 WM to the .308.

I am not a pro smith and my few builds have been with .308 and all of my reloading there also. I am not aware of the bolt face sizes etc and compatibility with other rounds. I am aware that multiple bolts fit other rounds, thus wildcat cartridges evolved

My reasoning in all of this is that I love to shoot, compete, and hunt. 300 WM is a lot better choice for 500yd Elk and Moose than .308. There really aren't that many "Tactical/Field" matches out there and NRA matches are moderately scarce in my area too. A few of the NRA matches are 7.62 limited though and I would like to be able to compete in those matches with the same rifle with a little interchanging such as acquiring a .308 LA Bolt and then the barrel, essentially saving me from the expense of duplicating another rifle in the chassis I like in .308.
Palma is a .308
F-TR is a .308

Any ideas would be appreciated
 
Medic88, Here the real reason for the long action

The Weapon System Matrix Manager for the M24 was Major John Mende and he explains that the long action actually had nothing to do with the ability to convert to a .300 Win Mag but was a product of that quick development time. The rifle was intended to be chambered in the .30-06 as the -06 was a type classified munition for the Army unlike the .300 WM at the time. They wanted to have a high power load for the .30-06 eventually developed. As development of the system was moving forward they discovered that there was not enough .30-06 ammo in a single lot in the Army's inventory to test and develop the system so they quickly changed to the 7.62x51mm NATO (308 Win) and left the action the same as there was not enough time for the manufacturers of the stock and floorplate to make the change to short action. They also fully believed they would later do a product improvement update and convert all the M24's to .30-06. The fact that they could convert them to .300 Win Mag was an unexpected benefit to the SF groups and was never actually designed into the system.


There is alot of switched barrel rifles build off the 700 action and Pacific and afew other making bolts be easy to switch out bolts also.
 
I get the idea of what your trying to do. Especially the one good peice of glass for multiple rifles. If it were me I would just have two seperate rifles both with picatinny rails so I could just swap the scope back end forth.
 
A couple of things about those NRA matches.
They are not shot in isolation, there are usually several rifle types on the line at the same time.
If you don't have a .308, you can shoot F-Open instead of F-T/R
If you don't have an IRON SIGHTED .308, you can shoot Any-Any instead of Palma.

A switch-barrel, switch-bolt rifle will add a lot of complexity and expense. Not as much as a whole extra rifle, but still a lot.
Then there is the switch. Will it return to zero after changing out the barrel and bolt? I don't know, but you will sure find out.
 
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