9mm Luger bolt-action rifle - What do you think?

[Welder]

So probably your first thought was, "Why?" But hear me out.

I've been thinking about the future of beginner rifles, which have traditionally been .22's. But we all know the ammo situation. So I was trying to come up with a 'next best' option. Here's what I would want for something like that:

1) Reloadable
2) Relatively Quiet (no sonic cracks)
3) Stingy on Powder
4) Storebought ammo available and cheap
5) Acceptable for varmints to around 100 yards
6) Could use cast bullets
7) Brass plentiful
8) Straight-walled cartridge to make reloading easy and case life long

So the cartridge that kept coming to mind was the 9mm Luger. Plenty available in semi-auto, but none in bolt action. You have the old quasi-Mauser Spanish Destroyer carbine, but that's in 9mm Bergmann / Largo and suffers from parts availability and breakage issues.

Typing "9mm bolt action" into the search engine brought up a few other people who've thought of this, and one possible solution. Seems the .22 TCM cartridge being offered by RIA in their bolt rifle is a close dimensional match for the 9mm Luger. A couple of companies are modifying the TCM rifles by slightly boring the bolt head (TCM based on .223 head dia) and swapping barrels.

I've emailed and called RIA asking them to chamber the TCM rifle for 9mm, but they aren't interested and referred me to the companies who are already doing so in the aftermarket.

Anyhow, just curious on y'all's thoughts on this. Really don't want anything more than a cartridge that's basically a reloadable .22. No Hornets, no .223's, etc. I did think of Ruger's 77/357, but that's also more power than what I'm wanting, with brass also being harder to find during the panics. To me someone manufacturing a 9mm bolt rifle is a total no-brainer. But it's possible I'm the one with an empty melon. :confused:

[SecondsCount]

I have thought about it but already have a 9mm AR and can reload subsonic 223 for less than 10 cents a round and get similar results as a 22LR.

Also, recoil is going to be substantially higher than a 22LR.

[Welder]

I have thought about it but already have a 9mm AR and can reload subsonic 223 for less than 10 cents a round and get similar results as a 22LR.

Also, recoil is going to be substantially higher than a 22LR.

At one time I had a Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine, but it was so long ago that I don't remember the recoil as being an issue at all. I guess the passage of time has got me confused.

While I know that various .22 centerfires could be used in place of the rimfire, I'd prefer a cartridge that could easily use cast bullets if a person was really on a budget (.22 is getting a little small for easily casting your own), and one that was straight-walled. Just thinking of how many bricks of .22 I shot up as a teenager...if I was to want to reload that many, I'd want as simple of a reloading process as possible.

I would consider .32 Auto except that the brass is a lot harder to come by. Bullets would be cheaper, though, at least cast ones. I don't know. I think the rimfire did what it did, perfectly. Except for being reloadable. I'm sure 9mm wouldn't be everybody's idea of the answer. I just think it could be mine.

What brings this to mind is the upcoming elections and the for-sure knowledge that once again our sport is going to suffer, some from the politicians and some from the hoarders and resellers. I hate to see a generation of kids coming that won't have a good option for a beginner rifle caliber because a bunch of idiots are slitting their throats, either for politics or profit. Just been spending some of my time off thinking about possible solutions to that problem.

[DamonL]

Never mind.

[David S.]

Along the same lines: Ruger 77/357 (http://www.ruger.com/products/77Series77357/specSheets/7405.html)

[Bigghoss]

If it were inexpensive and had iron sights I could see it being an interesting plinker. But otherwise I would say just reload for a 77/357.

[TGS]

A 9mm blowback carbine is actually less complex and cheaper to make.

So given today's awesome selection of 9mm carbines, why not just get a 9mm blowback carbine? I think the facets you want to address are why PCCs are so popular today. A bolt action would have no advantage over a blowback carbine for that target market.

[Welder]

So given today's awesome selection of 9mm carbines, why not just get a 9mm blowback carbine?

I dunno, I guess I grew up in a different world. Bolt rifles have always seemed to be the best beginner rifles to me, and they encourage quality of the individual shot over quantity of available shots. Plenty of time for semi-autos later in life. I honestly don't get as much enjoyment from a semi as from a standard repeater like a lever or bolt anyway.

To the above mentions of the 77/357, I keep thinking about getting one of those just for the fun factor. My biggest issue with it compared to a 9mm is brass availability. 9mm is everywhere, even in the shortages. So if the shooter is a little careless and loses some brass, it's not a problem even when times are tight. But I agree that the 77/357 is probably the closest rifle in current production to what I'm talking about.

Anyhow, just an exercise in thought. Not trying to convert anyone; just interested in hearing other peoples' ideas about what type / caliber rifle will be carrying the banner traditionally carried by the rimfire in the past. And seeing if an outside-the-box idea like mine has any wider merit beyond my own interests. :)

[olstyn]

I can see the appeal, but it seems like it'd have a somewhat limited market. It occurs to me that .38 lever guns also have a lot of the same advantages, and, as others have said, existing 9mm semi-auto carbines fill basically the same market niche, but have additional utility beyond "beginner rifle." Getting somebody to produce a 9mm bolt gun is probably a bit of a hard sell as a result.

[TGS]

I dunno, I guess I grew up in a different world. Bolt rifles have always seemed to be the best beginner rifles to me, and they encourage quality of the individual shot over quantity of available shots. Plenty of time for semi-autos later in life.

How about one of those Thompson Center guns or a break action Handi-rifle?

[Paul D]

Along the same lines: Ruger 77/357 (http://www.ruger.com/products/77Series77357/specSheets/7405.html)
My buddy has this rifle. Worst trigger ever. It felt like a Radom P64. Action was rough but doable. Not the greatest platform for a pistol caliber long gun in my experience.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

[Welder]

How about one of those Thompson Center guns or a break action Handi-rifle?

Yeah, one of those would work fine too. I didn't know you could get 9mm barrels for those - will have to do some looking around. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Welder]

My buddy has this rifle. Worst trigger ever. It felt like a Radom P64. Action was rough but doable. Not the greatest platform for a pistol caliber long gun in my experience.

Well that stinks. I was thinking for $800 you'd get something reasonably well put together. None of my LGS' have one of these to look at.

[Bigghoss]

You can get pretty much anything made for a Thompson Center frame, assuming the frame is rated for the round you want to fire.

Don't have any experience with the river 77's myself but I think Volquartzen makes a trigger kit for them.

[Welder]

Following is a link to a build thread by one of the original people to convert a RIA .22 TCM rifle to 9mm Luger. Just leaving this here as a starting point for anyone who finds this thread in the future and has an interest.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?276305-The-9MM-Bolt-action-rifle

[MolonLabe416]

I'll second the Ruger 77/357 for this application. In addition to doing everything you mention in your requirements, loading heavy, hard cast WFN bullets make this an excellent little hunting carbine for deer and such. Penetration of the WFN is way beyound what you'd think by reading the ballistic tables.

[farscott]

You can get pretty much anything made for a Thompson Center frame, assuming the frame is rated for the round you want to fire.

Don't have any experience with the river 77's myself but I think Volquartzen makes a trigger kit for them.

Yes, the T/C Contender and Encore frames have lots of possible cartridges. I have barrels ranging from .17 Fireball to .45 ACP to .22 LR to .454 Casull. I use the .22 K-Hornet to make my reloadable .22 LR rounds.

I much prefer rimmed cartridges in the break-action T/C guns.

[Grouse870]

http://specialinterestarms.com/index.php?page=novem
Here you go RIA TCM conversion to 9mm

[Welder]

This is an idea that's never really gone anywhere beyond a thought exercise for me, but every now and then I look around online and see if anybody's come up with a 9mm bolt rifle. Well, 4 years after my OP on this topic, now they have.

https://curtistacticalsuppressorsandrifles.com/CTSR-CT700P%20-on-remington-700-sa

I missed it by a few months, and it's way more than I want to spend, but Curtis Tactical has started one. Based on the Rem 700 SA pattern but I guess it's otherwise totally proprietary. Ti receiver, SS bolt, an AICS adapter for your KRG / whatever stocks that accepts Glock mags (or 1911 if ordered in .45ACP). The rifle with a KRG chassis and 16" barrel is going for just under $1500. For the record I'd been hoping somebody like Ruger would introduce one at $500; I still think it'd sell like hotcakes. Make mag adapters for all the popular pistol magazines....yeah, they'd sell.

It's too bad that this Curtis action is so huge for the caliber, and it's a super expensive rifle which I'm not sure will find a niche. But. Somebody is actually doing it. Me and probably 4 other people in the entire world are super excited about this LOL.

[olstyn]

So the fact that it takes Glock mags means 33-round bolt gun. That kind of makes me giggle. :)

[Welder]

Yeah, there's a FB video of them running a 19-length mag through one with an integrally-suppressed barrel just to prove function and feed. Nice-looking rifle, as it should be at the price.

[olstyn]

The integrally suppressed barrel option seems pretty neat, but man does that jack the price up from "high" to "nonsense." Seems like a fairly ridiculous range toy, really, but if I was made of money, I could see being amused enough by it to buy one. :)

[Welder]

The integrally suppressed barrel option seems pretty neat, but man does that jack the price up from "high" to "nonsense." Seems like a fairly ridiculous range toy, really, but if I was made of money, I could see being amused enough by it to buy one. :)

Yeah, my thoughts were always that we the shooting public are totally at the mercy of factory output for rimfire ammo. Non-reloadable means when it's gone, it's gone. So I've always been interested in the idea of an entry-level rifle that shot some of the most affordable centerfire ammo available. Relatively quiet, subsonic if you go heavy, cast bullet friendly, small powder charges...the 9mm was always the logical choice to me and a bolt-action rifle offers follow-up shots with an action that's totally quiet and allows you to retain your brass easily if you want. A 'fun gun' for plinking and 100-yard-in varmint hunting only. A tin can gun that you can afford to reload for and won't necessarily annoy the neighbors with sonic cracks.

I really think somebody like Ruger could do the idea some justice. But in the meantime, this new Curtis Tactical is a breath of fresh air to me. I'm pretty psyched at the idea if not the price.

[Borderland]

You can get pretty much anything made for a Thompson Center frame, assuming the frame is rated for the round you want to fire.

Don't have any experience with the river 77's myself but I think Volquartzen makes a trigger kit for them.

Don't waste your time trying to get a 77/357 to shoot well. Trigger mod won't help. Shimming the 2 piece bolt won't help. Replacing the stock won't help either. There's a design flaw in the takedown bolt that torques the barrel. Depending on how it's set will determine your accuracy. If you can replace that bolt with a hex head you might be able to torque it enough to get decent accuracy but I never found one.

That's my experience anyway. I got frustrated with mine and sold it.

[Lester Polfus]

My fallback when we go through one of our cyclical ammo panics is to reload gads of .38 Specials with hard cast bullets. With low power loads, I tend to lose brass before it wears out. I have .38 cases that easily have 20-25 loadings in them and are still going strong.

My Marlin 1894c will single feed wadcutters. Upon firing there is no real recoil. I don't think they are quite hearing safe out of the 18.5" barrel, but they are very quiet. Once I shoot up my stock of wadcutters my next plan will be to come up with a load with 140 grain truncated cone bullets that will feed through the action. The 1894c has noticeably better accuracy with jacketed bullets but it has usable accuracy for short range plinking and small game hunting with low-power, hard cast .38 loads.

I would describe the 77/357 similarly. The one I shot had usable accuracy for short range hunting, plinking and etc. They are small, handy rifles. Currently Ruger is cataloging one that is threaded for a can, although like most things it exists in the catalog but is unobtanium right now. My experience, along with a survey of the internet seems to suggest they are a 2 to 3 MOA rifle, which draws one of two reactions: 1) "that's horrible accuracy!" or 2) "That's just fine for what I'm going to use it for."

Contender barrels can be quite accurate.

Also, Henry single shot rifles are available in .357.

I really love the .357 cartridge for its versatility. If I had to start from zero with guns again, I might wind up with a single rifle in something like .308 or .45-70 for elk, and use a selection of .357 revolvers and long guns for every other application.

[Rex G]

Uinta Precision makes turn-bolt-action uppers, that can be used on all (or most) AR15 lowers. They might be willing to install a 9mm barrel into one of their uppers.

I doubt that it is difficult to simply build a 9mm AR15, but eliminate the auto-loading components. Install one of those nicely-extended ambidextrous charging handles. Then, one has a straight-pull bolt-action rifle. Done. Am I mistaken?

Folks who shoot externally-cosmetically-correct AR15 rifles, in matches, in jurisdictions that forbid AR15 autoloaders, already do this, with .223/5.56 NATO rifles. It is about as simple as ordering a barrel, without a gas port, and eliminating the gas tube, in the case of rifle-cartridge AR15 rifles.

For that matter, there is subsonic, heavy-bullet .223 ammo available. I just saw some, while ammo-shopping on-line.

It is not that I am opposed to a pistol-cartridge turn-bolt rifle. I might well have bought a Ruger .357 turn-bolt, except that I want my turn-bolts to be left-hand action, as I am left-eye dominant, so want my dominant eye to be in-line with optics and apertures, and reaching over the action and optic/scope is quite inefficient. (Instead, I bought a .357 Magnum Browning B-92.)

[CleverNickname]

I doubt that it is difficult to simply build a 9mm AR15, but eliminate the auto-loading components. Install one of those nicely-extended ambidextrous charging handles. Then, one has a straight-pull bolt-action rifle. Done. Am I mistaken?


That won't work on pure blowback system, like almost all 9mm AR15s. It would need some sort of locking mechanism to hold the bolt in place after the gun shoots. There's no gas tube or anything like on a direct impingement AR that you could leave out.

[Rex G]

That won't work on pure blowback system, like almost all 9mm AR15s. It would need some sort of locking mechanism to hold the bolt in place after the gun shoots. There's no gas tube or anything like on a direct impingement AR that you could leave out.

OK. It has been a while since I looked into pistol-caliber AR weapons. That still leaves the Uinta Precision option, if they will install a 9mm barrel, or sell an upper without a barrel. Their uppers are turn-bolt, not straight-pull. I had looked into them, some time ago, as a non-autoloading upper receiver option for traveling to some oppressive states.

[Rex G]

I was particularly interested in Uinta, because they offered 300 AAC/BLK as a standard chambering, in rifle and pistol barrel lengths. Is there all that much difference between subsonic 300 AAC/BLK, and a service pistol cartridge of similar bullet weight?

[Welder]

In my limited research, what I can remember was that most successful 9mm bolt actions had rear locking lugs because the cartridge is so short that it can get screwed up during feeding or extraction when passing through the locking lug recesses. I remember having thoughts of using a donor .222 or .223 Rem 788 before I gave up on the idea for the 14th time (bolt face is close to proper diameter on these). The forward locking lugs is what made me kinda ignore the mini-Mauser style actions.

I wanted to make mine use Beretta mags, since that's what I have scads of. I really don't think it'd be rocket science, although I'm a welder and not a machinist nor a gunsmith.

[Baldanders]

That won't work on pure blowback system, like almost all 9mm AR15s. It would need some sort of locking mechanism to hold the bolt in place after the gun shoots. There's no gas tube or anything like on a direct impingement AR that you could leave out.

Could you just put a too-heavy spring in the action to prevent feeding? As long as it doesn't end up being too heavy for comfortable manual cycling, seems like a possible solution to me.

A Ruger PCC would be a nice platform to try this on. I certainly wouldn't mod a Sub2000 that way because of the charging handle position. That would be annoying.

[CleverNickname]

As long as it doesn't end up being too heavy for comfortable manual cycling
I'm no mechanical engineer, but I'm guessing "heavy enough to prevent cycling by firing the gun" and "light enough to be easy to cycle by hand" are going to be mutually exclusive.

To get back to the OP's question, now that Ruger's bought Marlin, and since Ruger seems to occasionally release guns in unusual chamberings, how about something like an 1894 Dark (https://www.marlinfirearms.com/lever-action/model-1894/model-1894-dark-series), only chambered in 9mm with a 3-lug muzzle? Maybe even an integrally suppressed upper like Ruger's done with the 10/22 and PCC.

[jandbj]

https://www.am-mfg.com

Mike Klos does 9mm conversions on RIA 22 TCM rifles for $395 on customer guns.

[OlongJohnson]

There are actually some of those RIAs available.

https://gun.deals/search/apachesolr_search/4806015511083

[CleverNickname]

There are actually some of those RIAs available.

https://gun.deals/search/apachesolr_search/4806015511083

Hmmm, this is mighty tempting. If only it took Glock magazines which I have a ton of instead of some weird RIA mags.

[awp_101]

https://www.am-mfg.com

Mike Klos does 9mm conversions on RIA 22 TCM rifles for $395 on customer guns.

I didn't need to see this. My FFL can get the varmint/tactical stock TCM rifle for $395 so I'd be looking at ~$1K after all the shipping, transfer, conversion, etc and that just happens to be what I'm setting aside to pick up another 1911. Damn it...:eek:

[revolvergeek]

To get back to the OP's question, now that Ruger's bought Marlin, and since Ruger seems to occasionally release guns in unusual chamberings, how about something like an 1894 Dark (https://www.marlinfirearms.com/lever-action/model-1894/model-1894-dark-series), only chambered in 9mm with a 3-lug muzzle? Maybe even an integrally suppressed upper like Ruger's done with the 10/22 and PCC.

I was hoping for one in .45 acp myself. Ed Harris has written about his and there is a company (that I can't think of the name of) doing that conversion these days.

As far as single shot goes, MGM will make a Contender barrel any length up to 27 inches for ~$500 delivered. I have pondered converting a 9mm Largo Detroyer carbine to .38 spl wadcutter and modifying S&W 52 or Colt wadcutter mags to use with it. I have talked to a gunsmith and looks like all it would take would be running a chamber reamer in it and a little work on the bold face. That would be quiet with plenty small game thump.

[OlongJohnson]

I was hoping for one in .45 acp myself. Ed Harris has written about his and there is a company (that I can't think of the name of) doing that conversion these days.

Ranger Point Precision is a company in Houston. They were doing caliber conversions on Marlin 1894s to rimless, shorter cartridges, but they stopped taking gunsmithing work last year to focus on designing and manufacturing parts.

[peterb]

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2020/10/03/9mm-bolt-action-curtis-tactical/

More on the Curtis 9mm rifle.