Ray

I agree with you that I am making a big deal out of too little material behind the lug. It's just my personal take, excusing my affinity for the SHORT magnum and it's fantastic efficiency when used on a .308 bullet and larger. As a former student of the school that Ackley started, I have become a real fan of his simple truth relating to overbore and efficient cartridges. In his two reloading books he constantly slams the overbore cartridges and praises the more efficiently sized or improved rounds. After all this his answer to "what would your one gun be?" if limited to only one was the 220 swift. A little overbore??

Most of my M70 experience is with the Dakota 76. The short mag, 06, and 375long mag are all the same action length. The only difference was the length and width of the magazine cutout. The short mag Dak76 cutout matches my pre64 m70 action that was origionally 270 win. The mag box on my old win has vertical "flutes" that hold the 06 cases closer together. The Dakota 76 uses the Mauser width mag box for 06 rounds. I have not seen a pre64 short magnum M70, but I assume it is exactly the same action as my pre64 270 with a larger boltface and smooth sides on the mag box. I am under the assumption that the 375 length pre 64 is the same as Dakota's with the very short feed ramp and narrower feed rails than the short mag.

The 9.3x64 has caught my eye recently because of it's short mag size and impressive ballistics. Do you know who makes barrels for this size? It's too bad the 35 Newton never caught on, another awsome short mag without the useless belt. It would have been a great case for a 375 or 416 bullet for thinning the prarie dog heards!

gunmaker
http://users.elknet.net/chico