Morphed an Edge into a .358 Win

Corsica Coatings · 06-17-2010, 08:08 AM

I bought an Edge in .308 just to test reloads and have around as a beater/loaner gun. It consistently shot under 2" at a 100 yds which makes it a 300 yd deer gun in my book with NOTHING done to it and a cheap Simmons 3-9x. I was very happy with it...besides being an inexpensive gun.

I looked at it several times and the urge to modify took over...so...I pulled an old but unfired 24" A&B .358 Win barrel out of the barrel box and jumped into the project. I wanted something that was the same length as my Marlin Guide Guns so I laid everything out on the bench and 20" was the answer for the barrel and 13" Length of pull seemed about right for a gun that would be used in the winter with heavy clothes.

Into the lathe went the now 20" barrel, cleaned up the cut and put a new crown on the barrel....done.

The stock is another matter. It has a slide in recoil pad thingy that needed to be cut down to shorten the stock...not modify friendly at all. An hour or so fitting the recoil pad thingy.... Which isn't fit as well as I would have liked and it was ready to shoot. I had some 225 gr SPBT loaded pretty hot laying around and the first groups were in the 2.5" range again making it a 300 yd gun capable of shooting and killing most anything you choose. I DuraCoated the entire gun metal and it is essentially ready to go for less than $400.

Yeah...the stock is pretty flimsy and I don't think I would suggest it for a target gun, but for an all around hunting gun it will probably suffice. Someone will come out with an after market stock at some point.

If I had started out to do a .358 Win I would have used a Stevens 200...no doubt, but it really was not difficult to do with the Edge.....especially if I had been content with the original length of pull. All in all, it is a killer of large animals for few bucks....pun intended!