rondog wrote:Has anybody here ever had a .30-30 Rio Grande converted to .38-55? Just wondering if one would make a good donor for conversion?
Yep, I did. JES told me not to send him another, but he did not explain it, and I'm not sure why he said it. From my end, it is a wonderful rifle. I had him cut the 38-55 Win chamber with the 375 Win bore & groove (.366"/.376"). I didn't want to be screwing around with fat bullets. The rifle is extremely accurate. I use Winchester brass and a TLC378-250-RF that I designed.
The only thing that I had to do to the rifle was open the upper inside of the magazine port to allow the long bullet nose to clear the inside radius of the hole. I did that work with a rounded file from outside of the port.
100-yards...

Before killing this dude.

My load. The bullet is labeled "380," but it is really "378". I did a group buy for the "380" for the fat guys.

Within a couple of months, I refinished the would with Tru-Oil. It is a beautiful rifle.
I bought the rifle on sale for $250 and at the time JES was charging $225.