BigDaddy
Ultimate Member
- Feb 7, 2014
- 2,235
It was already sporterized when I bought it off Gunbroker so I did not Bubba it originally.
I took it to a gunsmith named Coleman in Alexandria. This is pre 2000 and and he was frequently mentioned as the builder of benchrest winning guns in Precision Shooter.
He rebarreled it to 6.5x55 and put on a milled floor plate. I know you are supposed to press on the release with a bullet tip, but that isn't going to work, short of a hydraulic press. I've hunted deer with this rifle for 20 years.
This year I decided to take the floor plate off and figure it out. Well I figured nothing out. The spring is in place and very hard to compress even if you take the floor plate out. If you take the spring out and use finger pressure, the latch works as one would expect. Then I put it back together and things got worse.
Here is the BIG Problema. I can only load 2 rounds in the mag. Coleman riveted a rectangular piece of aluminum to the back of the magazine well. The follower gets stuck halfway down. There is no significant play in the spacer, or the floor plate, once it is attached.
The spacer was beveled thinner and backward toward the butt pad, but the follower gets stuck well before the bevel. The follower fits fore and aft, until the floor plate is attached.
I would have noticed had I only been able to load 2 rounds while deer hunting. Yet I see nothing that could have moved. We tried filling the spacer but didn't make much progress. Taking off a few thousands wasn't going to fix it.
Any ideas what changed? Any ideas how to fix it?
I took it to a gunsmith named Coleman in Alexandria. This is pre 2000 and and he was frequently mentioned as the builder of benchrest winning guns in Precision Shooter.
He rebarreled it to 6.5x55 and put on a milled floor plate. I know you are supposed to press on the release with a bullet tip, but that isn't going to work, short of a hydraulic press. I've hunted deer with this rifle for 20 years.
This year I decided to take the floor plate off and figure it out. Well I figured nothing out. The spring is in place and very hard to compress even if you take the floor plate out. If you take the spring out and use finger pressure, the latch works as one would expect. Then I put it back together and things got worse.
Here is the BIG Problema. I can only load 2 rounds in the mag. Coleman riveted a rectangular piece of aluminum to the back of the magazine well. The follower gets stuck halfway down. There is no significant play in the spacer, or the floor plate, once it is attached.
The spacer was beveled thinner and backward toward the butt pad, but the follower gets stuck well before the bevel. The follower fits fore and aft, until the floor plate is attached.
I would have noticed had I only been able to load 2 rounds while deer hunting. Yet I see nothing that could have moved. We tried filling the spacer but didn't make much progress. Taking off a few thousands wasn't going to fix it.
Any ideas what changed? Any ideas how to fix it?