Thanks for the welcome everyone!
If you bought your .223 new in '96 it is not a shotgun frame, it is a pre '99 SB2 frame. The company was sold in '99 so it's a liability issue with products made prior.
When I called the customer service the lady on the phone told me that it was a shotgun frame, didn't make sense to me at the time but I went with it. The barrel I wanted to put on was a .204 Ruger and she told me that it wasn't available and all I could use was pistol cartridges, .30-30, .45-70, and .38-55. I didn't figure that a .204 would be too high pressure for the frame, but I didn't argue. Is there anyone out ther who will re-heat treat the frame to make it capable of handling the higher pressure cartridges??? Thanks for the info on my frame Spanky
I read some of the stuff I found on the .30-30 and .30-40 sounds pretty straight forward for the most part, but I do have a question about the extractor or ejector. How are those modified to fit the rims of different cartridges? I figure the .30-30 and .30-40 is pretty close and would work with a minimal amount of fitting but I read about a .22 Hornet to .22 PPC conversion on another site, so how would you go from a rimmed round to a rimless and make the extraction/ejection work??
Seems as well I'm better off staying with the .30-40 parent cartridge, as the AI version might give me some problems with the round being stuck in the chamber. I figure with the taper of the parent case I'd probably have better luck with extraction than with the straighter walled AI version. I have an old 1896 Krag so that was why I was thinking of how great it would be to get to play with the AI version because I love playing with this round all ready. I wasn't interested in using bullets lighter than 180 either, but I would like to try more spitzers and they just don't feed as well as the round nose in my old Krag.
It seems that I read some where that the AI's do not put as much pressure on the breach face as a regular case. This is due to the fact that the AI has a straighter wall and it sticks better to the chamber walls, thus less pressure on the breech face.....With Tim saying he is getting lug and latch flex with his 280 AI, it makes me wonder if it is true. Like Tim said you have to be careful about the older frames.
I've read the same thing in PO Ackley's books, and I'm really not into hot rodding loads but I would like to see my .30-40 with another 150-200 fps at the muzzle especially with some high BC 180-220 grain spitzers. For the price it cost to send my rifle back in to get a new barrel anyway, I could probably pick up a decent used rifle in .30-30 anyway around here and new one in .30-30 can be found for less than $200 still around here.
I could see the problem with the .280 AI just because the factory round is such a low pressure round compared to a properly hand loaded one. I have owned a .280 and while the factory rounds shot great out of it my hand loads blew them away. My brother-in-law laid claim to it after using it to hunt pronghorn one year, and I haven't gotten it back. He did offer to pay me for it but I told him that it was a long term loan so he would have to give it back when he got tired of it. I wasn't using it anyway as I still prefer my .270 over that rifle.
