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My hunting rifle is a Remington 700 .270, I have a couple other rifles that are .30-06 and someone mentioned to me recently that I should convert my Remington 700 to .30-06. What I was told is that it's a simple matter of just putting a .30-06 barrel on the gun, no other changes necessary, but is it really that simple?

I really have no intention of doing this, the .270 cartridge has never failed me before, but it got me to wondering if it really were as simple as a barrel swap.

I think so. The .30-06 cartridge is the parent carriage for the .270, if I recall correctly. Same basic cartridge length. Same action. Chamber pressures ought to be similar. I assume the same bolt would service both calibers. It should just be a matter of screwing a new barrel into the action and making sure that it's properly headspaced.

rmr1923 wrote:My hunting rifle is a Remington 700 .270, I have a couple other rifles that are .30-06 and someone mentioned to me recently that I should convert my Remington 700 to .30-06. What I was told is that it's a simple matter of just putting a .30-06 barrel on the gun, no other changes necessary, but is it really that simple?

I really have no intention of doing this, the .270 cartridge has never failed me before, but it got me to wondering if it really were as simple as a barrel swap.

As long as you have a good gunsmith who gets the headspacing right, it's not too difficult. At one time I had considered converting my Remington 700 from .222Rem, to .223, but I decided, that if I wanted that caliber, I would just buy a new rifle. The guy who offered to do it for "free" was a machinist [amateur gunsmith] who just wanted me to pay for the tools so he could use them for other jobs. Maybe not such a bad deal, but I heard that he messed up a couple of other jobs.

WildBill wrote:

rmr1923 wrote:My hunting rifle is a Remington 700 .270, I have a couple other rifles that are .30-06 and someone mentioned to me recently that I should convert my Remington 700 to .30-06. What I was told is that it's a simple matter of just putting a .30-06 barrel on the gun, no other changes necessary, but is it really that simple?

I really have no intention of doing this, the .270 cartridge has never failed me before, but it got me to wondering if it really were as simple as a barrel swap.

As long as you have a good gunsmith who gets the headspacing right, it's not too difficult. At one time I had considered converting my Remington 700 from .222Rem, to .223, but I decided, that if I wanted that caliber, I would just buy a new rifle. The guy who offered to do it for "free" was a machinist [amateur gunsmith] who just wanted me to pay for the tools so he could use them for other jobs. Maybe not such a bad deal, but I heard that he messed up a couple of other jobs.

WildBill is correct, as long as you have someone who knows how to get the head spacing right all you need is a new barrel and ammo.

hmm, interesting. i didn't think it would be that simple, it's definitely not something i'd try to do myself. but like WildBill said, if i wanted a hunting rifle in .30-06 i'd probably just buy another gun. speaking of which, my father-in-law has a Remington 700 in .30-06 that he tried to sell me a few years ago (he shoots a .243 now), i might ask him if he still wants to sell it, could probably get it pretty cheap... even with the "in-law" surcharge added.

Now if only I could convert a .222 rem mag to a .223... Unfortunately, from what I understand, that particular change in caliber is worth more than the gun itself... If you know otherwise, PLEASE tell me!!! (oh, it's also a remington 700... a BDL)