I had working designs for several different calibers for the short action rifles. The 204/223 posed a different set of problems when trying utilize the H&K G3 magazine. Various problems from the rounds not transitioning correctly from the wide body G3 magazine into the narrow column of the Savage magazine. Tom Snyder went a differnt route with the 204/223 version, by using a magazine from a Mini 14 rifle. Seems to be a good design, but I have not had my hands on one to know for sure.

Any of the usual suspects in the short action 243/308 and various will work with the G3 as described. The ONLY difference in them, would be to use the specific Savage factory magazine body for your particular caliber. Everything from the 22-250, up to and including 7mm-08 work perfectly, as well as a few of the WSM variations that I built. In the time that I was building them, I built over 400 magazines, and the biggest majority were the 243/308 10 round magazines. I still have my 2 personal magazines up and running, as well as the magazine that I built for my wife's rifle.

The only real limiting factor to any of these magazine conversions was, when I had shooters request a longer than possible COAL to fit inside the G3 body. As long as you load your ammo to an overall length of 2.80" and less, there were no issues. I did also remove the inner spacer of the G3 to get the overall to the 2.80".

In addition to the above listed information, I also built magazine conversions for the 270/30-06 long actions as well. While you can't utilize the H&K G3 magazine for this conversion, I did have good success with the WWII Browning BAR magazine. Frank-from-FL has the first one that I built for the long actions, and I believe that he is still using it to this day. I do know that he made a few modifications to my original design, and I made those changes in the last ones that I built. They all cycled perfectly!! The long actions are essentially built in the exact same manner of the short actions, but with just a few additional modifications to the BAR body.

DK