Rebarrel..is it worth it?

A while back I was given an old Savage 340 in 30-30. Its all right but I really have very little use for it, since I have no money in it(yet) I was tossing the idea of re barreling to .375 Winchester. Has anyone done one these in .375 Winchester, and is it worth it?

From my memory, the Savage 340 was never designed to take the pressure of cartridges heftier than the .30-30 that it was made in.

This info came from Gunczar.com

In 1979, Winchester introduced the .375 Winchester as a modernized, high-performance version of the .38-55 Winchester, a black powder cartridge from the 1880’s. .375 Winchester was introduced in 1978 along with the Winchester Model 94 “Big Bore” lever action rifle. Marlin (model 375), Savage (model 99) and Ruger (model 3) also introduced rifles chambered for the .375 Winchester, but very slow sales led to the demise of commercially available cartridges. Winchester officially stopped chambering rifles in .375 Winchester in 1987 and by 2002, only the TC Contender was the only commercial rifle available in the cartridge.

Though very similar in appearance to the older .38-55, .375 Winchester operates at much higher pressures (50,000 cup)

The lack of bullet selection for the .375 Winchester made reloading difficult, since most bullets available in the .375 caliber were intended for much faster cartridges, like the .375 H&H Magnum, and will generally not expand at .375 Winchester velocities. The .375 Winchester performs best with lighter bullets at around 2200 fps.

Click to expand...

I would not invest the time, and money into such an inexpensive rifle. It is what it is, an inexpensive hunter's and farmer's rifle... utilitarian, not beautiful. The safety issue is an even greater reason not to do this conversion.

That is my $0.02... and I'm sticking to it.

Kind of what I was thinking myself, just thought maybe someone had tried it already....thanks.

Well you don’t get a cookie because what you want to do has been done to death. The 340 is indeed strong enough and it was chambered in 222 and 223 from the factory. Some are quick to say that bolt thrust is less in the 222 case size which is true but the 340 was also chambered in the 225 Winchester which not only had a .423 base similar to the 308 or 30-06 but it was also a real pressure cooker made to compete with the 22-250 Remington which meant pressures of around 55,000 CUP. The conversion is quite simple since its already in 30-30 you don’t have to modify the bolt face or extractor. The magazine is straight line ram feed so it will probably need little to no modification and reproduction mags for the 340 are now available from some suppliers. Normally I loose the heading ring that is screwed over the chamber that Savage used to keep the cost of headspacing down. Its unsightly and a pain in the butt. Measure up the action and put a shoulder on the barrel the same as you would a 700 Rem and toss the header ring. If memory serves there is a male cone on the face of the barrel which is in most cases not necessary you should be able to square the barrel face but double check the bolt face to be sure. The thread pitch should be 18 TPI 60 deg with an OD of .858 but again double check the action. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you put a 1/64 to 1/32 radius on the chamber mouth. If you don’t it won’t feed well and it will smiley the round nosed 375 bullets. It’s a short, fat, thick little action and they generally shoot as good as the barrel you put on it. The downside is the scope mounting system the horrible trigger and the unsafe safety. Is it worth it?
Of course not it’s like building a reproduction Cobra or any other hot car. Its only appealing to the guy that makes it and when you go to sell it you will never get your money back.