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Biathlon conversion: Opinion Requested

7K views 1 reply 1 participant last post by  winch 
#1 ·
Recently I blundered into a nice (i.e. accurate and cheap) Savage 900tr. I was thinking of shaving down the right side of the stock a bit, adding a rail for spare clips, calling Savage to see if they had any snow caps left over from their 900b production run and making an intro biathlon rifle.
Thoughts?
 
#2 ·
Re: Biathlon conversion: Done deal

ok then, I will answer my own post for the sake of other potential biathletes. I originally bought a lonely Savage 900t to convert to a biathlon rifle. The 900t is the twin brother of the 90B biathlon built in the mid 90s by lakefield/savage. I looked for a conversion kit for a long time, but none were to be found. In the meantime, I bought a Marlin 2000 with a graphite stock and a couple extra clips. The trigger was not as smooth as the Savage, but someone had dumped some solvent on it and shredded the blue, so it was another rifle that I could re-configure with no loss of sleep at night. Originally, there was a summer biathlon conversion kit for the Marlin 2000. Unfortunately, neither of these were to be had for love nor money.

So I called Altius Firearms in West Yellowstone. They specialize in biathlon rifles. Marc Sheppard is the owner and a biathlete and a really nice guy. So he and I chatted about my predicament for some time and we both were of the same opinion: why didn't you just buy an Izmash biathlon rifle? The work is done, the equipment is there: they're cheap and durable. The cost of two cheaper rifles and the equipment that I"m still going to have to buy has now put the price pretty close to an izmash. Well, he also understood that the Minister of Finance at my house wasn't going to allow a 3rd "maybe project" rifle until something was done with the others. Marc told me that the Savage would be a harder conversion and that he had to refer the last guy that he talked to who was trying to do what I was doing with my Savage to a place in Canada for a conversion kit. So he hooked me up with an old style anschutz magazone holder for straight clips, an arm strap for the Marlin's existing handstop, a biathlon sling, and a sling mounting bracket. I went to the local hardware store and bought some 1/4" lock washers, some #8 flat washers, some 12-24 x 3(4?)" flat screws, some 8-32 x 2" screws that matched the recessing on the screw holes of the rail and some blue lock-tite.

There are some vents and a well beneath the marlin barrel and the lazy-guy in me saw this as a way to mount the rails and magazine cassettes w/out acdtually having to drill. I found, however, that the nuts and/or washers on the inside of the forestock well would rub the barrel. I was going to have to do some invasive surgery to build a better rifle.

I drilled through the stock into the well beneath the barrel and mounted the anschutz mag holder on the right side of the stock. I used 2 12-24 x 3" screws to mount the mag holder. After sizing up the work and calling it good, I remeasured and cut off the extra length that exceeded the width of the nut used in the well beneath the barrel. I used 2 3/8" flat washers on the outside of the magazine holder. I had to put a 2 #8 washers between the right forestock and the mag holder to adjust for the thicker-than-anschutz marlin magazines. I might go to 3 washers, as the mag cassettes get a little sticky when the weather is really cold. And biathlon is, after all, a winter sport. The 1/4" lock washers were used between the inside of the well and the nut. Blue lock-tite used liberally.

The biathlon sling mount rail went directly against the left forestock. I used 8-32 x 2 with a recessed screw head to match the recesses in the rail. Same story with lock nuts and washers and blue lock-tite on the well beneath the barrel.

To fix the base of the sling, I drilled two 3/8" holes in the buttstock and fed one sling end through each. I then tied off the sling ends in knots, so they wouldn't slip back through. The knots allowed me to adjust the length of the sling until I found the right position on my back.

A local Colorado Springs company called Neal J Guns offered Anschutz snow caps for barrel and front sight for model 64 Anschutzs at their online shop. I did some research and found that A64 barrels come in 3 sizes. The target shooting bull barrel being a milimeter different from the barrel diameter of my Marlin. I called and ordered one. As luck would have it, the diameter was very close. A little work with a curved hobby file got the job done. More blue lock-tite and bada-bing--I'm biathlon enabled.

In the future, I will probably disassemble the whole to add a coat of gun-kote or something similar so that I don't have to worry about adverse weather, but I am up and functional and competing this year in biathlon.

I also would like to add a shoulder hook to the butt plate for standing stability.
Another "i wish" addition would be an extra cartridge holder for misfires.

Eventually, if I become a good enough skier that having a turn bolt actually is an issue in competition, I will consider getting an Izmash (or an Anschutz, if I win the lottery), but I have a very functional, accurate rifle for a total of just a little less than $600.

Pics to follow when I have a little time.
 
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