Remington 700 Box Mag Conversion

[RocketFoot]

I have a Remington 700 ADL in 7mm Rem Mag that has no floor plate to remove the unshot rounds. It's a real pain in the ass to eject the rounds after a hunting session. Does anyone have any info on converting the R700 to the model with a floor plate or converting it to box mag fed? I'm not sure if I want to go through with any conversions, but I'm interested in hearing some ideas and options...

[CENTERMAST]

Take the rifle to a gunsmith and have him fix the problem. He will drop the barreled action into a new stock with either the swing open floorplate or a detachable magazine well.

[Tomcat088]

As centermast said, the easiest solution to this problem is to get a new BDL stock and buy some bottom metal. It is possible and can be done to inlet a stock that is for an ADL for BDL metal, but it's kind of a tough job sometimes. You have to try to "trace in" the inlet for the BDL on the stock, with the screw holes lines up perfectly on a stock that has some curve to it, etc. It's not exactly easy and then you have to cut it perfectly along that line, so it's not exactly an easy feat. It can be done, but usually from even just small things that aren't perfect, you'll see an area around the botto metal that is slightly too large, so there's a gap beside the metal. I have seen some capable gunsmiths that can do it though, without it really looking bad at all.

Typically, people will just buy a BDL stock, because it's the easiest and sometimes not all that much more expensive over paying for the work for a gunsmith to do it. This will depend on what your gunsmith charges per hour and how long he thinks it's gonna take him to do it, but it's usually a little while. Just realize you can buy a stock like a Bell & Carlson Medalist for around $200; if you have to pay a smith $50 an hour and it takes him 3 hours, you're still stuck with a factory stock that might not be quite perfect, and only saved $50. If you want to keep the factory stock though, then you'll have to do something like this; just remember there are other companies that do make synthetic and fiberglass stocks that are in the original Remington stock shapes.

Alot of people don't realize this, but depending on what bottom metal you get, there are actually some differences in them. They vary in thickness sometimes around the screws, and even sometimes in how long the drop plate is. When you buy some of these stocks for BDL, they come with a paper that shows you some of the differences and that says they make the stock to be "drop in," but that they actually sometimes require some minor inletting. This is sometimes needed to make the BDL metal to sit flush with the bottom of the stock. Hope this makes sense, and if we can help you in any other way or answer any other questions, fire away.

[buster]

I think I've seen the hardware for a 700 conversion, either drop floorplate or magazine setup, in a Cabela's catalog. I'm sure there would be other sources, too. Since there would be some woodworking involved, maybe you would just want to take it to a smith.

Another option would be to buy another stock, either wood or synthetic, which would need no inletting. You could just install the hardware yourself to your new stock.

Magazines are nice for loading and unloading rifles, but you can never lose an internal mag if you just go for the drop floorplate option.

[Tomcat088]

Some people love and some people hate the drop plate. I've knocked them on Winchester Model 70's while trying to sling them out the window, and dropped out all the shells, lol. It'll really piss you off. It's a little more difficult to do it that way on a Remington 700, since the release is inside the trigger guard. Either way, there are some tactical shooters that actually "gray tape" theirs closed, so they don't pop open on accident.

You also mentioned "box magazine feed"; I'm guessing that you're referring to DBM, as in Detachable Box Magazine? If this is the case, that's kind of another beast to deal with. For one thing, not all bottom metal is created equally. Some people have quite a bit of problems getting the thinner Factory Remington DBM to feed reliably. As a result alot of other people will go with the HS Precision bottom metal (slightly cheaper, but lots are hating HS Precision right now) or go with Badger DBM. Most of the tactical shooters are going with Badger bottom metal right now, but realize that this is NOT a "cheap" or "cost effective" option. The bottom metal will typically run around $275-350 or a bit more, just for the bottom metal, not including what it'll cost in gunsmithing to do this.

The other thing that people don't realize, that will sometimes cause problems converting even a BDL to DBM is this. The ADL and BDL actions have feed ramps built into the action. They're the metal that makes up the bottom of the action and has a little angle on it. The factory DBM action do NOT have feed rails built into them, because the magazine lips basically perform the same function. So if you are converting and ADL or BDL to a DBM, then you MUST have the feed ramps milled off of the action. When you talk about milling to a gunsmith, that's when prices start to go up in services a bit. I'm also pretty sure (not 100% positive) since we're talking about milling off the feed ramps that help hold the cartridges in the internal magazine, IF you convert one to DBM, there is no going back to BDL or ADL. In terms of cost, if yo'ure not wanting to spend around $500 or more on this conversion, DBM probably isn't how you want to go about this. You're looking at near $200 for a stock or getting your stock inletted for it, milling off the feed rails, then the cost of the bottom metal; it adds up FAST. Hope that helps and just some things to think about before you jump in the DBM thing.

P.S. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but even the cheaper factory bottom metal for BDL will cost between $80-100 if you shop around for it. If you're going with a different manufacturer, you'll be looking at $180 or more just for the bottom metal, not for inletting, another stock, etc. When you look at some of these costs, sometimes people would just rather buy another rifle that is BDL. If you have to buy a stock that costs near $200 or a bit more, or have to pay $150 to have yours inletted for it, and then spend $180 or more on bottom metal, you're looking at near $400. For that money you can find used Remington 700's that are already BDL, or you could spend another $200 (too much I think, lol) and get a brand new rifle that is BDL. Anyway, just some other things to think about, and help you understand the costs we're talking about.

[RocketFoot]

Thanks for the info, guys! Sounds like a lot of trouble for something debatable. I heard a few people say that the ADL's are the most accurate because of the rigid stock...but that could only be minor. And like mentioned above, you can't lose or bump loose an ADL's Magazine! That's another plus! For all I use it, I might as well stick with the ADL setup (unless I come across a cheap BDL stock assembly!) The biggest con is manually cycling the ammo to unload.

[Tomcat088]

You're welcome for the info buddy, and as you said, it is alot of trouble for something that kind of has some mild gains. To be honest, I'd rather spend that kind of money on triggers, more on a scope, etc than just not having to cycle the bolt to manually eject the rounds. There are some people that say that ADL's are more rigid, I don't necessarily buy it, but it is a possibility. I think that Metal is more rigid than wood, and the gap has metal around the outside of the magazine, and the bottom drop plate is metal, so I think it's just as rigid but that's my opinion. Either way, most of us (myself included) can't shoot a rifle well enough to be able to tell that difference. It is notable that almost all of the BR guys don't even shoot rifles with magazines, they're all single shot hand loaded rounds. I'd say some of them can shoot good enough to see the difference, or just the confidence in feeling that it's more rigid helps. If you don't use the rifle alot, then as you said, you might just want to leave it how you have it. I'm not sure what you have around, but the other day on a forum I traded an old Remington 700 trigger for some factory BDL bottom metal, straight up. I have a custom trigger and had another one laying around that I wasn't going to put back in the rifle, so it wasn't a bad trade at all.

I got a possible solution to your hatred of having to manually cycle the ammunition to unload. Now this is not necessarily the SAFEST practice, so PLEASE BE AWARE OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING. I have been raised to treat a firearm as it is always loaded, and as such, it has never really scared me to have loaded firearms, or firearms with rounds in the magazine. When I take an ADL hunting, and don't feel like completely unloading and manually cycling the rifle,this is what I do. I eject the round/brass that's in the chamber, which will mean that the next round will be pushed up and ready to cycle. I then push the round down with my finger and slide the bolt forward until it is past the base of the next round. This means that the bolt does NOT pick up the next round and slides into the chamber EMPTY. MAKE PERFECTLY SURE THAT THE BOLT DOES NOT PICK UP THE NEXT ROUND!! If you don't, you're actually loading the rifle, and if this makes you believe that the rifle isn't loaded, it's BAD BAD (as you know). At this point, some people will dry fire the firearm, so that there isn't tension on the firing pin; I "click" it, so that the trigger is not reset and takes all tension off of the firing pin spring. This leaves you with a rifle that does not have one in the tube, but does have some in the magazine. REMEMBER that this means when you open the rifle, if you merely push the bolt forward, it WILL BE LOADED and WILL HAVE A ROUND IN THE CHAMBER. Some people don't like to do this because they feel it's dangerous, or that there is the possibility of wearing out the magazine spring. My father has done this with his rifles for a long time, I shoot them today and still don't have any problems with rounds not feeding due to a weak magazine spring. Realize that some people think it's not a good thing to leave tension on the firing pin spring (I agree), or at least think that it isn't a good thing, so they dry fire the rifle. I can't stress enough that if you do this, PLEASE ensure that a round does NOT chamber as you push the bolt forward, and ALWAYS know that when you cycle the bolt the next time, it will load a round.

Some might call this "sloppy" or lazy, which I can see how it would be perceived as much. Either way, to me, it results in a rifle that is not stored loaded (just ready to be), and where you don't have to manually cycle the bolt every single time to "unload" the rifle. Might be something you'd like to use, maybe not, but that option is there if you're interested.

P.S. Sorry if it looks like I am shouting with the caps, but I want people to be VERY aware of the possible dangers of this method so that no one is injured while using it. It's kind of like us Remington 700 guys that like to use the "bolt raised" method with a loaded chamber. It's something you should NEVER do with a Savage, EVER. Hope that helps

[rhineland]

Rhineland Arms is working on a conversion kit for Remington and Mauser rifles. It uses the Accuracy International magazines and a very solid aluminum rail inside a wood stock. Here is a pic of the rail.



Rhineland arms