Savage bolt head conversion

[RonS]

Can a Savage 223 bolt head be enlarged to fit a 6.8 Rem SPC without issues?

 

[Ggmac]

You may be better off buying one for 6 PPC . I have opened up 223 bolt heads to 30 remington , which is the 6.8 parent case. If you can do your own work ,I would say go for it . If you need to have someone do it , buy one from PTG.

 

[RonS]

Doesn't the PPC bolt head have a slightly larger opening? Wouldn't this cause the spent case to maybe fail to extract sometimes?

 

[Ggmac]

It hasn't so far . I use the sme rifle , 30 remington ,and 6 PPC . I switch the barrels at the range . I did open this bolt face from a 223 .
A call to Dave Kiff should tell you what his PPC bolt heads are cut to .

 

[NorCalMikie]

Sent one of my .223 bolt heads to "my man" to have him open it up for the 6.8 case. Took him all of about 5 minutes to do it and had it back in the mail the same afternoon. Took so little time that he didn't even charge me.
Same extractor, spring and ball. Works like a champ. 8)

 

[rayjay]

When I did this conversion I had to do some grinding on the bevel of the extractor. Iirc I was basically just moving the bevel outward a bit to match the larger rim dia. Also iirc, I was doing this because the bolt was a bit hard to close due to the rim hitting the flat face of the extractor. Your parts may have slightly different tolerances and work fine.

 

[rayjay]

On the magazine I used a 223 box and modified a 6.8 mag follower from an AR15 mag. I did shorten the vertical legs of the 6.8 follower and shortened the AR spring. Mag holds 3 rounds.

 

[RonS]

Thanks guys, I'm going to check with my gunsmith as well as PTG. This is for a single shot plinker and maybe a small varmint critter getter so I don't want to invest a lot cheese into it.