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Long Action vs Short Action.

Jeff, I'd spend some time with gunsmiths that do the Precision work. Each one will have an opinion for one reason or another. Listen to what people who actually build rifles with the actions have to say about them.

Read the various forums here. Soon you'll be able to sort the truth from fiction.

Having said that the last 4 rifles I've had built were based upon; Remington LA completely trued with oversize PTG bolt, Remington SA with boltface bushed & minimal truing, Defiance anTi & Kelbly Nanook.
 
I have a Rem Mod 7 in a 300 WSM that I can't run the big boys in unless I run it one at a time, but I have it for a hunting rifle. I have gotten into the long bullet craze and I like them, but they don't work so well in a WSM.
I am seriously thinking about either selling it or giving it to my grandson as a custom from his grandpa.
Give it to the Grandson, he will cherish the rest of his life. My prize shotgun is a side by side exposed hammer 10ga that was given to me by my Pop 50 years ago, my sons favorite rifles is my Dad's 300 Wby.

Those guns that can't be replaced!
 
I'd like to jump in on this thread and ask if anyone knows of a good resource to learn more about the technical aspects of choosing an action? I'm interested in building a precision rifle and as I read the ads for different actions by quality builders, it's clear that there is a lot to understand here. I haven't found any books or online articles which go deep into different actions' features and functions, so I'm left trying to piece together passing references in threads like this, but if anyone can recommend a good source for a deeper understanding of rifle action technology, it'd be much appreciated.
A lot of it is personal preference. When I got into it, I looked at cost, different stocks, prefit barrel options. Taking a basic rem 700 action, getting it to work may cost very little, or may cost a 1000 on top of starting price.
I like impact precision for durability, availability, options, and bighorn/zermatt for cost, changing bolt heads, etc...
Integral bolt lug, m16 extractors, and integral top rails are nice with actions having less moving parts, but the Orgin action bolt lug has an alignment pin.
TI actions are lighter, but long term, heavy use is known to degrade them... again, a relative term based on your needs.
They are all great, provide a lot of similar features, and long story short, it's personal preference. Check out the long action vs short action thread by TORCHRIDER. what is your end goal with a build? I'd post an article on what you want to accomplish, and there are a ton of people on here with way more knowledge and experiences, that can help you narrow it down.
 
Tikka's for Me, as the Actions are, SMOOTH as Glass and, very, "Modifiable" !
Put, a $10 - $20 dollar Spring, in the Trigger from Elay Precision or, Ernie the Gunsmith, NO need of, an After Mkt., $150.00+ Trigger.
Buy or, Modify, the Bolt Stop's to suit Cartridge Length desired with, Lots of Magazines and New Stock, choice's, available.
Just Buy an old, used ( worn out, Barrel ) Tikka in, 7 Rem Mag., .270 WSM or, .300 WSM and build yourself a New,.. 6.5 PRC, 7 MM PRC or 7 SAUM.
My 3 Factory, ( slightly "Modified" ) Tikka's shoot, 3/4 MOA on one of My,.. "Bad Days" !
Plus,.. the Single Stack Magazines in Tikka's, "feed" my .270 WSM,.. PERFECTLY !
 
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It was my understanding that WSM cartridges have inherent problems feeding in a true long action. I believe they are fine in the medium but a true long action and WSM cartridge in most cases creates feeding issues as I have read and understand it. That being said I have my 65PRC built on a Defiance long action with no issues.
 
IMHO, I see zero benefit in a 6.5 PRC in a longer action unless you are using a powder with massive kernels that is overfilling the case and compressing the charge. I also do not buy into seating any of todays bullets to the lands or close to it. Now, a PRC at 2.8 coal vs a 2.950 is different story if that is your goal, however, the PRC in SAAMI form is not 2.8.

I have not tested this myself but let's say you go medium or long action and run the bullet .100 thou further out in a PRC. What is the netted case capacity gain? How many grains of powder does that equal in volume? What is the increase in FPS or net effect of increased performance? When doing a seating depth test with a 6.5-284 running to the lands and seating back to .175 thou I saw no benefit in performance in gained or loss of FPS. In the PRC I run mine to mag length of 2.950 coal and send it. Zero issues getting FPS and accuracy is that appears to be right in line with any action length. The one test I could do is single feed and play with the process but I am not convinced it is going to net anything meaningful.
 
Wanted to express my views on action length. With the advent of shorter fatter relatively high capacity cartridges, I am observing that they are actually better suited to longer actions, say 30-06 length actions than shorter ones. Such cartridges include the WSMs, Shermans, the PRCs, etc. The reason I think they are better suited to the longer action is that the longer action and magazine will better accommodate the very high BC bullets now available, since the bullet can be seated further out in the case and increase the usable powder capacity, providing greater optimization of the bullet jump as well. Limiting powder space and jump control simply degrades the potential of the short fat cases, which arguably are more efficient than longer cases with narrow powder columns. Case in point is my 300WSM. I have that rifle in a long action Savage, it feeds well and I can shoot our 175 gr BD2 bullet 3200 fps and the 195 gr BD2 at 2995 fps. From a short action that would be difficult to do if not dangerous with those bullets loaded to magazine length. Finding the same thing using a 6.5PRC. Would like to get some rational discussion about this subject from the obviously experienced reloaders on this site.
I did some extensive testing with bullet seating depth many years back and pretty sure the report was posted here on LRH. The test was with my 338 Allen Xpress which is my version of an improved 338 lapua. Now this is not a short action but the reason for the testing was because some were saying they could seat the 300 gr berger to well over 4" in their 338 edge rifles and easily match the 338 Allen Xpress……. i knew this was not correct, especially when considering brass life. The results however really did surprise me.

tested this bullet with a seating depth of 3.650" for use in detachable magazines such as the HS Precision, 3.820" for use in the extended mag lengths and then at 4.100" for single shot use which should have produced a HUGE advantage in velocity.

to start the test, i started with Retumbo which at the time was one of the better powders for the 338 Allen Xpress with the 300 gr berger. the test barrel was a 26" finish length, simply tested cutting throat lengths to different lengths.

going off memory, the short length produced around 2850 fps. mid length was a bit over 2900 and the long length was in the 2975 fps range so there was a 125 fps increase in velocity. This was as expected and it proved that a long seated 338 AX in a relatively short barrel was easily matching a long seated 338 Edge but doing it with 4" shorter barrel length….

anyway, after this test and reviewing the results, the short seated rounds ran out of capacity relatively quickly. So just for curiosity i decided to try some ramshot magnum which is a ball powder in similar burn rate to retumbo. Just to see, i through a same weight powder charge as the one used for retumbo and found that there was plenty of excess space in the case with same weight powder charge. This was simply due to magnum being a ball powder with much higher load density then the stick powder retumbo.

gave magnum powder a full work up and to my amazement, this powder topped out at the exact same 2975 fps as the very long loaded 4.100" version with retumbo…… i could actually use slightly more Magnum in the short 3.650" oal then retumbo used on the long seated version…..

so whats the point. Well, with the selection of powders we have today, there is very likely a combo that will work with a higher load density powder that will produce basically the same velocity as a different powder in a long seated application.

now if your using one specific powder, yes there will be a preferred oal to get the most velocity for a given situation but in a short seated application, there will be a best powder and there will be a totally different BEST powder for a long seated application. In the end, they often are extremely similar in end resulting performance.

as far as safety, we have heard often its dangerous to deep seat bullets….. not sure where this came from. I have never seen any danger at all in doing this. In all honesty, even a deeply seated bullet will have passed through the throat and into the bore before peak chamber pressure is reached. Never seen any issues over many thousands of rounds testing my super magnum wildcats or any other conventional chamberings.

if you want to use a standard receiver for a short action round, if it feeds, no problem at all. There are extended mags for most of the most common SA receivers which offer good oal that work well.

simply put, dont get to hung up on thinking you need to seat the bullets out as far as possible to get top performance numbers. That is not actually the case. Unfortunately today, getting any powder we want is a bit tricky for sure though.
 
I have a Rem Mod 7 in a 300 WSM that I can't run the big boys in unless I run it one at a time, but I have it for a hunting rifle. I have gotten into the long bullet craze and I like them, but they don't work so well in a WSM.
I am seriously thinking about either selling it or giving it to my grandson as a custom from his grandpa.

I have a model 7 and found a bottom metal for it, without any mods short of removing the BDL floor plate and installing the BZm it allows the cartridge to be loaded at 2.85" and if you do a modification on the feed ramp 2.95" is max. I have two barrels for my model 7 350 Rem Mag and the 6.5 Rem Mag.
 
I probably need to just go search for it, but has anyone done a definitive test with the same cartridge and projectile and comparing short vs long action speeds with comparable loading?

In both you would want to load close to lands while using the longest OAL possible while still maintaining neck contact with projectile.

For example, I'm using a 7 WSM in impact action and hawkins hunter magazine at about 2.91" OAL. I'm getting 2875 fps very easily with 175 ABLR and RL26 on a 24" barrel. Pretty sure I can hit mid 2900s without an issue but I don't want to inflate my numbers.

For the sake of conversation, if I rebuilt it with a long action what would I expect as a FPS gain here by adding powder capacity and OAL?
 
I love my 308 in AR. And it's happy at mag length. My biggest struggle with my 308 700 is that it really is not happy until you exceed standard mag length. I'm shooting 168s and still have bullet taking up usable case capacity and am nowhere near the lands. I added a Wyatt's bottom metal and mag which gave me a little more room, tightened groups a little bit, and feeds much better than my factory mag. But I'm still limited, still not close to the lands, and she stills wants to be long enough for accuracy that I need to single load. While I like the rifle. It Will likely be my last short action.
I have a different mindset than most folks today. While most are scrambling to buy the latest model bow. I still shoot my homemade longbow or 30 year old Black Widow. I own one "modern" age cartridge. The 6.5 Grendel. I do like ARs. For my purposes, the Grendel made the AR a more useful tool for me, so I went with it. But I still don't like being limited to mag length in that platform.
Just like in archery, my interest lies in the tried and true cartridges with bolt actions and I don't intend to be hindered by mag length again. Though I may be swayed by a 257 bob or 6.5 x55. I like 6mm Remington, 25-06, 270 Win, 6.5-06, and 30-06. If I went magnum, but I never will, it would be 7mm REM Mag or 300 Win mag. Brass procurement is not an issue for my favorites. I don't know of any new caliber in bolt action that would offer a significant advantage for my needs. There are however two modern short action calibers that are eye catching for me. 6.5 and 7 Saum. But brass would have to flood the market to make it a consideration. But if I went there, medium action would be a minimum and long action more probable. But I know me and I'll likely never go there. There again, I prefer the older stuff. The Mack Brothers Evo 2 action I just built my 6.5-06 with and accompanying mags seat quite a bit longer than book values plus get me to the lands and well beyond with 140, 143, and 147 grain bullets and feeds extremely smooth with either the MDT AICS or the Magpul AICS 30-06 mag. The MDT holds 7+1, the Magpul 5+1. I had to tweak the MDT feed lips
 
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Finally figure that out. I never used a short action. If I am going to have something built, I go to long actions. especially now with the change of how bullets are being built. You can become a single shot shooter quickly. I am not that far into it that I get high end actions, but will chase down an older Rem 700 action in 25/06, 270, 7mm, 280 Rem, 30/06, and a few others to build from. In the 700 Rem action used, don't go above Letter "C".
 
Finally figure that out. I never used a short action. If I am going to have something built, I go to long actions. especially now with the change of how bullets are being built. You can become a single shot shooter quickly. I am not that far into it that I get high end actions, but will chase down an older Rem 700 action in 25/06, 270, 7mm, 280 Rem, 30/06, and a few others to build from. In the 700 Rem action used, don't go above Letter "C".
I bought an old 30-06 adl for a donor action originally. Didn't have much money in it. I have various Remington 700 parts, triggers, etc so I knew I wanted to stay with the 700 footprint and intended to pull the barrel and true the action and bolt. I crunched the numbers and was right there with the new Mack. Then when I considered barrel removal from the old action I started thinking. But still on the fence. The final straw was a buddy offered me more for the old 30-06 than I paid for it. That sealed the deal.
 
I took the barrel off of a long action and screwed a 308 Win barrel on it so I could run the bullets labelled "single feed only" in it. Of course there was some other work to be done as well, but it worked.
 
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