Thread: Will a rem 700 mag box fit a howa or could it be modified to fit buy a gun smith

Got issues with my howa mag
My chamber will Accept a coal of 2.927”
Where my mag will only fit 2.875”
Been looking at wyatt mag boxes which get you and extra 0.110” which would allow any length I will need
I have emailed wyatt to see if they make a howa one
But it doesn’t appear so on the website
My question is would a remington 700 fit or could be modified to fit buy a gun smith
?
Cheers
Darryn

I looked into it further after our pm and it seems Tikka factory mags are the only factory mag that will except that length. Im looking now at the A.I stile conversion with the wider steal accurate mag brand and a Remington bottom metal from Atlas worx. Another option could be the DPT Tikka bottom metal and a std tikka mag.

@Wingman
CFE-5 Magazine Box, WYATT'S OUTDOOR, INC.

I was thinking if this could be fitted or modified to fit
They say it gives 0.110 extra length over a standard remington 700 mag
Which I assume is arround the same as the howa?
That being true this could fit a coal of 2.985”ish?

Sorry @Wingman got the link worng it’s this one MBE-5 Magazine Box, WYATT'S OUTDOOR, INC.

It wouldnt be hard to take the box out and fiberglass the stock to the size you want.

Originally Posted by rambo-6mmrem

Sorry @Wingman got the link worng it’s this one MBE-5 Magazine Box, WYATT'S OUTDOOR, INC.

Yip I cant see why that wouldnt work, may need a bit of machining and grind in places but easy mod Id say. This is the std box out of my Rem 700 creedmoor:



I modded my Rem 700P in .223AI in much the same way.. fitted an Atlas bottom metal and moved it all back 150 thou. ground the same amount of the bolt stop and it feeds long rounds perfect now.

Totally get the desire to maximise COAL. An alternative view though, bit of devil’s advocate...

Have been down the COAL road with my Howa and ummming and aahhhing about single round feeding vs using the mag as is, or doing a conversion. Went through all the aftermarket parts available. Lots of wincing as price / difficulties with import / export and so on. If I was going to go custom, I wanted quality steel all round, and easy availability of sensibly priced mags in case I lost one. I admit I didn’t go the whole hog on this investigation so this thread will be interesting for sure.

But at the end of the day I looked critically at my ballistic and accuracy outcomes between the maximum length that would chamber less 0.010” for jump (2.917” COAL), vs magazine maximum allowing easy feeding (2.850” COAL), plus a couple of slightly bigger jump loads (0.020” and 0.040”). I concluded there wasn’t a significant difference in performance between the them. Measured in percentages, it was pretty negligible, in my terms at least. The load I settled on at 2.850” for easy feeding still gave me 2800fps and thats with AR2209, so with RL-16 I’d expect you’d be a bit north of that. I’m probably surfing a wee bit closer to pressure signs than @Wingman did, but well within the kind of loads we read about and watch on YouTube.

So just putting it out there, I wouldn’t bother with a mag conversion. I’m a “near enough is good enough” kind of bloke, not as exacting as others though I do wish I could be a bit more exacting sometimes. A couple of velocity percent here and there doesn’t worry me, though I can see why some blokes might want to wring every last fps out of their load. Goats and deer haven’t been turning around and berating me anyways.

I’d probably leave the rifle as is, and focus on getting ES down as low as possible so the 500m+ goats are easy as. In fact the rethink on my Creedmoor load that I’ll be doing after the current ammo box is finished, which will be 500 rounds in total down the tube, will be all about ES, as temperature sensitivity is a biggy for me as the rifle gets used in an approx -3°C to +30°C range. I do get the odd faster round with AR2209. Having said that if you come up with a magic solution I’ll probably copy you!

Yep will be trying them at std mag length 1st and i will single load some longer ones to see if it’s worth the money to lenthen the mag
Just wanted to work out my options if it needs modification

Another thing to consider, when assessing accuracy, is humidy and temperature w.r.t. the wooden stock. Do you see a shift in POI with significant changes in met conditions? It’s a variable, at least in some walnut stocks, that can have quite a noticeable effect. Whether it is a material effect with the bedded action is something I’d be keen to hear more about.

My steel pillar bedded, recoil and tang expoxy bedded laminate stock is shifting around ever so slightly. I assume some movement in the stock, and some powder temp sensitivity, just to stop myself going mad trying to replicate one hole 5 shot groups.

Maybe do what you have to do to the P14 303's when turning them into bigger magnums. If you cant get the mag box from a p17 you cut the mag box and make it longer and weld it back together.

Looks like it should be easy enough to do something if the rifle likes them long

Have ordered a waytt extension box and a follower to suit
Talked to a couple of gunsmiths and seems it’s most likely doable
If so this will give me a maximum oal for the mag of 2.985”
Considering my max coal with 0.005” jam is
2.932”
This mag box will give me anything I need and more

Very interesting!