Long, short, or medium action?

[Nevrsummr]

I wish i was good enough that the bolt cycle time between LA / SA made any difference to me. Im not. I would think a lot of people are not. As the higher bc bullets are getting longer/heavier, the short action has become limiting to some as already stated. Medium actions are a solution to that. But so are long actions. I think the draw to a shorter action to me would be the shorter oal of the rifle, and a few oz of weight savings. That being said. I own only LA's

Yes you can have feed issues with SA cartridges in LA actions. Depends on the cartridge. Theres also already some solutions in place for that too.

I currently have a 6.5 max in a LA with BDL and i have to carefully load the bullets about 1/2" forward from the back to get them to feed. Thinking i might try to switch it up to DBM to try and fix that. I dont think you would have any problems with most of your standard cartridges though.

 

[Hugnot]

Eons ago when I was not olde I shot NRA hipower with a long action. It was a M70 Win. The bolt stop bar on the extractor collar was removed & two steel strips were silver soldered inside of the magazine box at ..308 cartridge shoulder/body. No sheet metal spacer block in magazine. It worked just fine & the rifle fed beautiful rapid fire with 168 SiMK's from stripper clip. Bullets were loaded to boat tail brass end neck shoulder.

Recently - I am shooting .22-.250's from a Ruger MKII SA's, designed for 2.8" more or less rounds. My .22-.250 rounds measure 2.65". Wonderful pleasing feeding - makes me happy to blaze away at certain targets. The Ruger .22-.250 magazine box has a sheet metal spacer, that magazine was replaced with a standard .308/.243 size.

Generally a shorter round will work in a long action provided the bottom receiver rails or sheet steel magazine box top edges retain each round allowing it to be stripped from the magazine by the bolt so the bullet is guided into the chamber. Some receivers will accept different magazine boxes to allow rounds of different diameters or lengths. Feed lips of sheet metal magazines may be bent in or out & polished.

Aluminum spacer blocks may be fastened inside magazines to position short or long rounds. The procedure is to fit the aluminum block inside the magazine box using a file. The aluminum block is then anchored inside the sheet steel box with small flat head metal screws thru holes drilled in box & aluminum block. The holes in the sheet steel box are counter sunk. When positioned & attached the outside of the box is filed smooth. For push feed rifles no ejector cut needs to be made in aluminum block. Check & adjust if neccessary for bolt clearance.


The upper edges of the magazine box were bent in about .010 & polished. The rifle feeds beautiful & I often can take out 3-5 rodents sitting on the same mound. In this case the magazine was modified to accept rounds that were loaded .10 longer.

 

[C-130 Dude]

Eons ago when I was not olde I shot NRA hipower with a long action. It was a M70 Win. The bolt stop bar on the extractor collar was removed & two steel strips were silver soldered inside of the magazine box at ..308 cartridge shoulder/body. No sheet metal spacer block in magazine. It worked just fine & the rifle fed beautiful rapid fire with 168 SiMK's from stripper clip. Bullets were loaded to boat tail brass end neck shoulder.

Recently - I am shooting .22-.250's from a Ruger MKII SA's, designed for 2.8" more or less rounds. My .22-.250 rounds measure 2.65". Wonderful pleasing feeding - makes me happy to blaze away at certain targets. The Ruger .22-.250 magazine box has a sheet metal spacer, that magazine was replaced with a standard .308/.243 size.

Generally a shorter round will work in a long action provided the bottom receiver rails or sheet steel magazine box top edges retain each round allowing it to be stripped from the magazine by the bolt so the bullet is guided into the chamber. Some receivers will accept different magazine boxes to allow rounds of different diameters or lengths. Feed lips of sheet metal magazines may be bent in or out & polished.

Aluminum spacer blocks may be fastened inside magazines to position short or long rounds. The procedure is to fit the aluminum block inside the magazine box using a file. The aluminum block is then anchored inside the sheet steel box with small flat head metal screws thru holes drilled in box & aluminum block. The holes in the sheet steel box are counter sunk. When positioned & attached the outside of the box is filed smooth. For push feed rifles no ejector cut needs to be made in alumium block. Check & adjust if neccessary for bolt clearance.
View attachment 367513

The upper edges of the magazine box were bent in about .010 & polished. The rifle feeds beautiful & I often can take out 3-5 rodents sitting on the same mound.

Outstanding! Exactly what I wanted to know, thanks.

 

[Litehiker]

I really WiSH Browning has made their 6.5 PRC X-Bolt Pro rifle in a medium action length. Instead they squeezed it into the same short action they use for the 6.5 CM. I love my X-Bolt Pro except I can never seat my bullets out even 1/16" further if I want to get them in the magazine.

 

[257 STW]

Very cool! What issues (if any) did you have mating the mag to the long action in regard to the shorter type cartridge? My intention is to utilize a Rem 700 long action in .308 using a 5 or 10 rd magazine. This would get around the cartridge oal limitation of the short action I now have. This idea may be a crap shoot (at best), but im curious. I see cans of worms here? What say you?

I didn`t use a DBM on that rifle just a blind ADL setup. I had McMillan build the stock that way. I wouldn`t think you should have mag issues as long as the case diameter is the same as the cartridge the mag was made for. I would think you should be able to load the shortys in the longer mag without issue. But again just my thoughts as I have never tried exactly what your wanting to do. The short parent case of the 22-6mm feeds just fine from the ADL long action I used. My .02

 

[C-130 Dude]

I didn`t use a DBM on that rifle just a blind ADL setup. I had McMillan build the stock that way. I wouldn`t think you should have mag issues as long as the case diameter is the same as the cartridge the mag was made for. I would think you should be able to load the shortys in the longer mag without issue. But again just my thoughts as I have never tried exactly what your wanting to do. The short parent case of the 22-6mm feeds just fine from the ADL long action I used. My .02

Thanks