Winchester Short Mags in FN Actions

[BradD]

Hi all,

 

I'm just finishing up two 325 WSMs that I built on FNs (one for me and one for my son). Not only am I the first kid on the block to have one I may be the last, considering how they are not exactly taking off like crazy.

 

Anyway, I have solved all of the problems that come with putting a WSM in a Mauser (and, boy, are there a bunch) except for ejection. With a loaded cartridge it ejects cleanly. With an empty case (which is what you usually do when hunting) the empty just wiggles a little bit when it hits the ejector and then lays there like a big egg.

 

Changing extractors made no impact. Right now I'm planning on adding metal to the end of the ejector to see if adding more ejection leverage will kick that tubby little sucker out.

 

That worked on another conversion I did some years ago on a less strangely shaped cartridge.

 

Anyone else dealt with this before?

 

Brad

[Mauser98]

Hi all,

 

I'm just finishing up two 325 WSMs that I built on FNs (one for me and one for my son). Not only am I the first kid on the block to have one I may be the last, considering how they are not exactly taking off like crazy.

 

Anyway, I have solved all of the problems that come with putting a WSM in a  Mauser (and, boy, are there a bunch) except for ejection. With a loaded cartridge it ejects cleanly. With an empty case (which is what you usually do when hunting) the empty just wiggles a little bit when it hits the ejector and then lays there like a big egg.

 

Changing extractors made no impact. Right now I'm planning on adding metal to the end of the ejector to see if adding more ejection leverage will kick that tubby little sucker out.

 

That worked on another conversion I did some years ago on a less strangely shaped cartridge.

 

Anyone else dealt with this before?

 

Brad

5764[/snapback]

Make sure your ejector isn't binding.

 

I had problems with ejection with my .35 Whelen in a FN action. After much fooling around, I discovered that my ejector was binding in the bolt lug slot when the guard screws were tight. When I loosened off the screws, the ejector freed up and ejection was good.

 

It turned out that the bolt stop screw was misaligned with it's hole in the stock, causing the screw to torque to one side when the guard screws were tight. The torquing caused the ejector to bind. I redrilled the hole and my ejection problem was solved.

[BradD]

Thanks. As it turns out the ejector wasn't binding, but the ejector box assembly was overmilled and it was incredibly sloppy. I replaced it with a new assembly, but that didn't make things work any better, but it made me feel better.

 

I have seen that problem before though and it does happen.

 

Will let you know how the longer ejector works out.

 

Thanks,

Brad

 

Make sure your ejector isn't binding.

 

I had problems with ejection with my .35 Whelen in a FN action. After much fooling around, I discovered that my ejector was binding in the bolt lug slot when the guard screws were tight. When I loosened off the screws, the ejector freed up and ejection was good.

 

It turned out that the bolt stop screw was misaligned with it's hole in the stock, causing the screw to torque to one side when the guard screws were tight. The torquing caused the ejector to bind. I redrilled the hole and my ejection problem was solved.

5851[/snapback]

[roscoedoh]

Brad,

 

I have always been told that WSM's were extremely hard to make properly cycle through a Mauser.

 

If I may ask, how'd you get it to work? And would it be possible to get a couple photos? I am curious to see how this is done as I have never seen anyone attempt a short mag on a Mauser.

 

I do like the 325 WSM if for not other reason than its an 8mm! Let us know how things turn out too please.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Jason

[BradD]

Brad,

 

I have always been told that WSM's were extremely hard to make properly cycle through a Mauser. 

 

If I may ask, how'd you get it to work?  And would it be possible to get a couple photos?  I am curious to see how this is done as I have never seen anyone attempt a short mag on a Mauser.

 

I do like the 325 WSM if for not other reason than its an 8mm!  Let us know how things turn out too please.

Thanks,

 

Jason

5865[/snapback]

 

 

Hi Jason,

 

Sorry about being slow getting back to you. Gun show in Vegas. Had to go.

 

Anyway, of the two, my son's functioned flawlessly. On mine nothing worked very well. Two almost identical FN's about the same age.

 

My barrel guy took care of the feed rails when he did the barrels and bolt faces. Nothing exotic there, pretty much the usual magnum trim job. However mine would not hold the last cartridge reliably.

 

I have dealt with this a time or two in the past with mag conversions. The solution for me has been to undercut the left rail, thereby making the cartridge nestle back under the rail a bit more and try to get the following round or follower to push the ready round at, say 4:30, instead of maybe 5 o'clock, thus holding it farther under the rail. Make the contour of the grinding consistent with the shape of the cartridge for smooth feeding. And, of course - GO SLOW and test.

 

I've never had a subsequent feeding problem and it has always worked, pemanently.

 

Right now mine feeds okay, but it hits the feedramp rather hard and I think I can improve that nicely with a little reconfiguration of the ramp, tubby cartridges trying to get through small holes... Haven't gotten to it yet. Will let you know.

 

As I mentioned earlier, both guns eject a loaded round in fine fashion.

 

Neither ejects an empty case very well, or at all. I changed the extractor for another magnum extractor and that did nothing (wasn't a tension problem). I was concerned about that because I had my 'smith bevel the extractor claw a bit so that it would load over a round, thus enabling me to load three rounds (the FN will only hold two in the magazine).

 

I played with several different ejectors, finding one that was a few thousandths longer and it does kick the empty out, although not as positively as I would like. I want to know this thing is going to work if I have a mad pig running at me, or away for that matter. Thus I came to the conclusion that adding metal to the lead edge of the ejector will add ejection torque to the ejector by hitting the case earlier than normal. I haven't gotten the ejectors back yet, but when I finish fitting them will post the results here. I will add that I had this problem once before with a mag conversion and that did fix it. Hope it works this time, too.

 

As for the magazine itself I just used two original mags with the blocks in them for .308/.243 length cartridges. That part worked fine.

 

I will have my missus shoot a couple of pictures of mine and post them here later.

 

Hope that addressed most of the things you were wondering about.

 

Brad

[Doble Troble]

Maybe the ejector problem has something to do with the bigger case (duh, I know, stay with me). It needs to hit the rim near the outside edge. With the bigger diameter case it may be hitting too much toward the center and pushing it forward rather than flipping it to the right and out of the action.

 

If this is the case then narrowing it by grinding it down to just hit the outside of the rim should take care of the problem.

 

Hope this helps.

 

That 325 WSM is a cool cartridge. You've definetly got tenacity builing two Mausers in that chambering.

[BradD]

Hmmmm....

 

You might have a good point here. I had been studying the point of impact on the case, wondering if that might make a difference.

 

Funny thing, I came to the conclusion that if the lead edge of the ejector hit farther in towards the center, there would be more striking force on the case as it would be leveraging the case more.

 

But now that I 've thought about your point, I think it is well taken. Obviously if the lead hit anywhere near the center then it would just be a dead blow and, as you pointed out, it would just be knocked loose from the claw and drop dead where it layed. Which is about what is happening.

 

I will dig out another ejector and change the impact point tomorrow and report back what I find.

 

I may go back to Siamese Mausers after this one....

 

Thanks,

Brad

 

 

[roscoedoh]

Brad,

 

Thanks for posting! You answered many of the questions I had.

 

One other area to look at is your magazine geometry. If I can dig it up, I have some information on how to figure this out. If I can find it, I'll PM it over.

 

Anywho, keep at it. Persistence is the key!

 

Have a great day and good luck.

 

Thank you,

 

Jason

[z1r]

Jason,

 

One thing to note regarding magazine geometry is that if the rails have been altered to work with the issue box then you may have problems if you alter the geometery to be "correct".

 

Jason is right that the geometry should have been altered first. These cartridges are considerably wider than the win mags.

[Jimro]

Instead of altering the ejector blade to hit the brass closer to the rim, take a little off so that the main point of contact is closwer to the primer.

 

If you think of the ejector blade as a lever, having it impact near the rim will give you more advantage, but less movement. Having the ejector hit closer to the primer will give you more movement but less advantage.

 

When you have a loaded cartrige there is a lot of extra mass up front that can make use of the momentum supplied by the hit near the rim, but an empty has much less mass up front and will just wiggle there.

 

And ejector blades are cheap.

 

Jimro

[BradD]

Jimro and Doble,

 

Today I tried the ejector modifications that we discussed yesterday. I pulled out an unused, probably surplus, ejector that matched the current one. I cut a notch on the inside point of the lead edge, thus making the ejector hit farther out towards the rim. Nada. Same thing it just hit the ejector wiggled and died there. Put the other one back in and it made a squirming motion towards the outdoors and gave up the ghost. So the current location of the striking point on the lead edge works better than cutting it back towards the outer edge of the rim.

 

Jimro, your point about hitting farther in towards the center of the rim, thus providing more striking force by increasing the leverage was originally what my conclusion had been also. Obviously there is going to be a point of diminishing returns as it approaches dead center, as Doble pointed out, wherein it becomes a dead blow and knocks the case loose with no projection.

 

Right now, I guess I'm back to waiting for my lengthened ejectors and seeing how that works. As I mentioned it did work for me some time ago on another std mag conversion that was acting that way. We'll see....

 

Jason, I (and probably all the rest of us) would really appreciate tha magazine geometry info. Hope you can find it.

 

I also, have a couple of pics ready to add, if I can figure out how to that. Hope it's not as hard as fixing ejectors.

 

Brad

[sonic1]

have you tried grinding the bolt stop back a little so the ejector will come out farther when the bolt is retracted?

[Doble Troble]

Or braze on a drop of silver solder to lengthen it, grind/file flat and let that brass fly to Venezuala.

 

Now that I was wrong (yet again) I want this problem FIXED.

[roscoedoh]

We're talking about the ejector blade, right?

 

I have wondered how hard it would be to trace the blade onto a piece of similarly gauged steel and cut out a new one + some extra metal to allow for ejection modifications? I presume after the mods were made, the new ejector would have to be rehardened? This is just a little more food for thought, but would making up a new blade be easier (for experimental purposes at least) than brazing the original?

 

Jason

 

 

[z1r]

How much extractor tension do you have? Tension on the rim I mean. If there is too much slop the case can do as you say.

[BradD]

Hey guys,

 

Bad, sad day today, but tomorrow I'll pick it up and start over.

 

I got the two extended ejectors back today, so after I tend to a few other errands I promised folks I'll start fitting them. My barrel guy says it should work and it has before for me, but I'm looking at them and I see there is only about .010" left in front of the lead edge left in the slot.

 

I'm not sure if I should just grind them to fit what space is left or extend the slot farther. I'd like to add .020-.030 to the lead to assure a good hard blow.

 

Mike, I swapped out the ejector for a good working magnum one with plenty of tension...nada.

 

I'll let you know. Hope it doesn't turn out badder and sadder than today...Yikes!

 

PS: grinding the bolt stop back was an interesting thought, too. Anybody ever done that before? I might just try it with an old junker bolt stop/ejector box before I do anything else. That's less permanent than extending the ejector slot in the receiver.

 

PPS: Posting pics has turned out to be, well, challenging, but some day they will be here. Choosing between picture posting and ornery ejectors is a tough one, but I better spend my time on the ejector. Heinekin would be better than either.

 

B.

[BradD]

Mike, I said I exchanged the ejector for a good magnum one. I meant EXTRACTOR. Just like you were talking about.

 

Yi yi yi, getting goofy.

[Jimro]

The ejector forms a lever with the extractor claw, if it hit dead center on the primer it would still have half the diameter of the case head, more than enough distance to provide movement. The backwards pull of the extractor and the forward push of the ejector are what give you the good fling.

 

Try swapping out the bolt stop assembly (with ejector) and bolt from the working mauser and put them into the non working mauser, if that fixes the problem then you need to check out the thickness of the non working ejector.

 

I've had ejectors bind in an unmodified mauser simply because they got gritty, or I swapped out ejectors. So try making the ejector blade thinner to fit easily through the slot on the bolt head. Try cycling the action and watching to see if the ejector blade gets pushed into it's slot quickly and on time. Also check the extractor claw for burrs. Check to make sure the the case head and the bolt face have proper fit and clearance.

 

Jimro

[BradD]

IT WORKS! IT WORKS!

 

The longer ejector blade solved the problem.

 

But it wasn't quite all that simple, I spent most of the day getting it going. Mostly because I wanted to go slow and to revisit all the things we discussed here, just to be sure.

 

This is going to be a long story, so if you're interested, get comfortable. If you're not thinking about something like this you may want to pass.

 

I want to share this with you is because the reason - not the CAUSE, but the REASON - that this wasn't ejecting is something that escaped all of us.

 

The CAUSE, a short fat case in an action never designed for it and the action longer than it needs to be for a WSM. "Reason" to be discussed shortly (well, longly).

 

First, what I did:

 

1. Extractor - I put a std mag extractor on again and tried it - tons of tension. Nothing. I hand fed a 7mm Mag case that way and ejected it, and it sent it to the moon. Extractor not the problem.

 

2. Ejector not hitting far enough in toward the center - Normally the depth of the slot in the bolt through which the ejector slides controls the depth at which the ejector protrudes across the case head. Don't know why we didn't have that conversation before - we all know it.

 

However I decided to sacrifice a couple of ejectors in quest of truth and knowledge. First one, I ground away the recurve behind the lead edge until I got the ejector blade to protrude farther into the receiver, thus hitting close to the center of the case head. Nothing once again.

 

3. Ejector hitting too far in toward the center of the head - Next I took another new ejector blade and cut an even bigger notch than before on the lead point of the lead edge, effectively moving the striking point out to about 3/32" from the outer edge of the rim. Nothing.

 

4. I liked the idea that sonic 1 made of grinding the bolt stop back to make the bolt stop farther back and thus making the ejector protrude farther and striking harder. Kind of like what I was thinking of doing anyway. So I sacrificed an ejector box/bolt stop and ground and tried and ground and tried, etc. Guess what?...Nothing. Hmmmm, why didn't that work??? It really did protrude a lot farther.

 

Therein lies the secret. Have you ever looked down the canyon, I mean tunnel, under the bridge when the bolt is fully retracted against the bolt stop? It must be an inch or more deep!!!

 

Now the REASON. A standard length cartridge or, for that matter a WSM with a bullet in the end has enough forward weight to cause inertia and begin the case to fly NECK FIRST when it hits the ejector. And, for a standard case, enough lateral clearance within the tunnel to get moving and keep moving.

 

A little short fat WSM has very little clearance to allow lateral movement down in the tunnel even when there is sufficient weight up front to intitiate inertia. But the real problem is that when that chubby little sucker is back down in the depths of the receiver bridge tunnel, by the time it hits the ejector, it's not going anywhere!

 

After ejecting several dozen times in several dozen configurations I started watching what happened. The case did indeed jump mightily, hit the other side of the tunnel and then just rattled around in it's too-deep cavern, but it wasn't going anywhere.

 

So, why does a longer ejector blade work? When we ground the bolt stop back, the bolt - well - stopped farther back, making Tubby even farther down in the tunnel when he was trying to get out. Remember the chubby kid in school trying to get over the wall? My apologies if you were him, no offense intended.

 

However, a longer blade hits much sooner, thus booting the case out harder AND sooner thus avoiding going deeper into tunnel AND having more get up and go.

 

How'd I do it. Well my barrelsmith welded (hard weld) enough material on the lead edge to make it impossible to fit the blade into the slot so that I could hand fit it as tight as possible - lengthwise. I did not have to lengthen the slot, but could have if needed.

 

I carefully ground the lead edge, consistent with the original angle, until it would just clear the forward end of the slot. I could always take more out later, but I don't weld anymore and I didn't want to send it back for more metal. Maybe .002" front clearance.

 

With the additional length the blade no longer folds into the ejector box enough to allow bolt passage through the receiver tunnel. Easy enough, I carefully filed a square notch in the outside edge of the blade so that it would fold into the box the same depth as a normal ejector blade.

 

Now when I eject an empty case - bingo! It's out of there every time. Not to the moon, but a good two feet, anyway. No jams!

 

Data: An original blade measures 1.340" absolute length, but that isn't real meaningful. Flushing the lead edge to one side of the caliper and measuring to the other end gives a reading of 1.206" functional length for the standard. My new one measures 1.421" absolute length and 1.374" functional length. In other words I added .168" to the functional length of the ejector blade (1.374 - 1.206 = .168").

 

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and I hope this info will help those of you considering a WSM conversion. It's possible, but there definitely is some new frontiers to explore getting there.

 

If anyone needs pics or drawings let me know your email address and I'll mail them to you direct. It's hard to add pics here.

 

My barrelsmith is Dave Carver at I,T&D Custom Gun in Minerva, Ohio (330) 868-6867. I've been with him over twenty years and his work is always outstanding. And he's pretty smart. too.

 

Thanks again,

Brad

[Horsefly]

Brad,I bet your shoulder is sore from patting yourself on the back.That was some mighty fine work you done.You must be a patient man.Jerry

[BradD]

Thanks for the kind words, Jerry.

 

Actually my arm is sore from throwing parts across the room.

 

Jason has offered to post some pics for me, so as soon as my email service gets back up and running I'll get them to him. Then at least you'll be able to see what all my babbling was about.

 

Brad

[BradD]

Thanks for the kind words, Jerry.

 

Actually my arm is sore from throwing parts across the room.

 

Jason has offered to post some pics for me, so as soon as my email service gets back up and running I'll get them to him. Then at least you'll be able to see what all my babbling was about.

 

Brad