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Ok, so I have a Savage 340 in .30-30, did some work on it, and it is great. After a buddy played with it, he brought me his 340 in .222 Rem and wants me to work on it... Now, the trigger job and bedding I can do, but the one thing I cant find an answer for on Google is this:

Can I put a heavy barrel on it? I would think that one could find a barrel blank that would fit (he would love to swap over to .223 if we do a barrel swap, or if the only way to get a heavy barrel is a different caliber swap he's fine with that too) and run the reamer through it, cut it, and crown it, but then again, I am no expert. Oh, I will NOT be the one doing the barrel swap-- we'd have a real gunsmith do that part... but we can't get a solid answer over the phone... Any ideas for whether this can be done?

Thanks!!!

I don't see why a barrel should be a problem, it uses a barrel nut to set the head space and hold it into the reciever.
The only problem is that it would likely cost more than the rifle is worth, also the magazines were made for a specific caliber,Savage chambered the rifle in .223,so they made mags, they may be hard to find. I have one in .222 that I have had since the 60s.

Rifleman55 wrote:I don't see why a barrel should be a problem, it uses a barrel nut to set the head space and hold it into the reciever.
The only problem is that it would likely cost more than the rifle is worth, also the magazines were made for a specific caliber,Savage chambered the rifle in .223,so they made mags, they may be hard to find. I have one in .222 that I have had since the 60s.

haha yeah, I told him that it wouldn't be cheap, but for some reason it just has to be this gun... it's his money though, so I'm happy to help... I definitely forgot about the barrel nut... Good call on that one. So in theory, the .223 mag should still fit in the .222, right? I'm kind of wondering if everything will play nice together.

Thanks for the help!

I don't get it! The only thing he stands to gain is ammo availability.

If I owned a .222, I'd just enjoy shooting it. Was very pleased to see that Savage is still offering the .222 in their model 25 Walking Varminter and model 25 LV-T Lightweight Varminter.

Mike1951 wrote:I don't get it! The only thing he stands to gain is ammo availability.

If I owned a .222, I'd just enjoy shooting it. Was very pleased to see that Savage is still offering the .222 in their model 25 Walking Varminter and model 25 LV-T Lightweight Varminter.

Well, I told him that as well, but like I said, his money... I mean, he may realize that the douglass barrel he wants may not fit, and that the boltface won't easily swap from .222 to .223, or any number of any other problems that may or may not come up with a caliber swap... We'll see. I know for sure we're going to refinish the wood, but it'll be done in black rather than just tung oil, so that should look, well, different. I left mine in the regular wood color, but I sanded out the scratches and gouges and refinished it with tung oil.