If you are not familiar with the Williams Forearms Company, it is a supplier of excellent trigger guard and related assemblies. They can be used to replace those poor quality plastic or cast and painted factory parts, or a good original part for anyone putting together a custom rifle. I’ve been working my way through my Remington and Winchester rifles, replacing nasty looking cast, plastic and powdered metal parts with Williams close tolerance CNC machine parts, all machined from either solid bar stock or drop forged pieces, so there are no porous surfaces to show up in polishing, no uneven bluing, no fat rounded edges, just clean material like manufacturers use to put on their rifles before they got wrapped up in careless cost reduction efforts. The Williams parts are available in the white, stainless, polished blue and matte blue.
Great news for this of us looking for a solid action for customs at a reasonable price, Williams in looking to introduce their own line of rifle actions near year end. The preliminary specifications are:
Controlled-round fed action
3 position safety with gas flange for added safety
Wire EDM’d raceways, instead of broached
100% CNC machined from solid preheat treated 4140 bar stock
Wire EDM’d trigger and sear, similar in design to the Model 70
Adaptable to Model 70 stocks
One-Piece Bottom Metal assembly
Machined stainless follower
Customer preference of Integral Dave Talley or Weaver-style bases, machined into the receiver.
The tentative price for the short magnum action is $825.00. Extra-short, long, and extra-long actions will be priced slightly higher, but all anticipated versions will come in under $975.00, including a large magnum action with a .750″ bolt diameter capable of handling the 416 Rigby cartridge. Considering the product features, and the company’s use of advanced close tolerance part producing manufacturing technology, the prices are more than reasonable. This will be great for me, I can stop using Weatherby’s and similar donor guns for my large diameter cartridge case projects, or having to rely on marginal conversions done on Remington actions. Most everything else out there from other sources fall under the description of specialized action, weigh a ton and are priced slightly higher than my Harley.
How about a .358 WSM ?
There are so many new things going on in the firearms industry, cartridges, hardware, accessories, etc. it’s difficult to know where to jump in and start exploring. I’m still going to wait a bit before committing to a custom rifle, I just can’t find a combination that is really appealing. If I go with big case capacity, I need a long barrel to efficiently use the potential of the cartridge, so what else is new ? If I go with modest capacity, the results are less than spectacular, so what else is new ?
Using RCBS.Load’s cartridge designer feature, I opened a .300 WSM to .388″ outside neck diameter for a .358″ bullet, straightened the shoulder to 40 degrees, and ended up with a case that would cycle through a short action, and hold…8 grains more than a .350 Remington Magnum, and only 3 grains more than a 35 Whelen. Now if I put that in a nice short action, 22″ barrel compact Winchester; a quick rebarrel, some mag well work and some bolt facing, I could almost duplicate an obsolete (and rightfully so) .350 Remington Magnum, and have a rifle that kicked like a mule, and pay a premium for brass and bullets.
I tried working up a .375 bore and rediscovered the existing .376 Steyr. I went for a .416″ and .458 bore, which resulted in a, respectively, a mediocre .416 & .450 Alaskan. I finally tried versions in .338″, .308″, 7MM, and .270″ version, all with the same result; the best I could do was almost achieve the performance of several already long time existing cartridges. I believe guns based on this cartridge are seeing great success, I’m just not sure why. Maybe they it’s because they are new. Remington, on the other hand, seemed to have nerfed it on their short magnum series, and the Ultra full length seem to be muddling along. Based on BDL prices, the Ultra rifles are a steal, as are the Winchester guns. I may just be witnessing the battle of the PR and advertising firms.
I still think the Real Guns article, dated not long after the release of the .300 WSM, made some correct assumptions. The short high capacity cartridges make great sense in smaller bore versions, but then proportionally they have a huge powder capacity, and therefore would need a long barrel to make them useful. so what is the point of a short action that limits overall cartridge length, when it is holding onto a 24″ or 26″ barrel? Hey, for fun and enjoyment, and for the sake of new things and experimentation, are probably reason enough, but I still see no substantial performance gain from the cartridges they will displace and probably eventually replace. Velocity increases soon outstrip bullet design and/or availability, cases won’t hold enough optimal sloooow powder in heavy bullet weights, and throat erosion goes off the charts. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong direction, beyond 200 yard performers and ultra high velocity?
Thanks
Joe
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