Action blueprinting??
- Thread starter jgss2
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rscott5028
Well-Known Member
Yes. There are hand tools that you can use to "blueprint" your 700 action.
You can also blueprint a spaceship with a Big Chief tablet and a No. 2 pencil.
How good do you want it to be?
You can also blueprint a spaceship with a Big Chief tablet and a No. 2 pencil.
How good do you want it to be?
I did not pull up the tools listed, but have a short answer for you. Yes you can to a great degree true up the action body, BUT you cannot true the bolt lugs without a lathe. I still think that the bushing system can give some benefit by trueing the action face and lug abutments and to some degree the action threads, especially if you also get one of those boltface truers. If you were to cut the action face and and lug abutments, lap the bolt into decent contact, and then use the bolt face truer you are going to be about as close as you can get without a lathe. Another thought would be to buy the oversized PTG bolt and use the action reaming tool.
With the amount of play in a remington, and the cocking piece induced cant, and the way they seem to shoot anyway, leads me to thinking that these actions are not as much of the total accuracy package as some believe. I have been told by an old BR shooter that so long as the barrel is good, the chamber is semi straight and the bedding is good, they will shoot. Don Geraci builds about the best shooting rifles I have ever seen, and he will only true the action face and lap the lugs. He thinks everything else is just fluff. With his track record of routinely sending 1/4 MOA remington based hunting rifles out the door I have to think he is right.
I use the fixtures at times, sometimes I true them in the lathe depending on how I feel. I have not noticed any difference in accuracy. Still if it is a confidence issue, which I feel most of what we do to these actions is, you are probably better off sending your actions to the smith. If I recall I spent about 700+ tooling up to true actions.
With the amount of play in a remington, and the cocking piece induced cant, and the way they seem to shoot anyway, leads me to thinking that these actions are not as much of the total accuracy package as some believe. I have been told by an old BR shooter that so long as the barrel is good, the chamber is semi straight and the bedding is good, they will shoot. Don Geraci builds about the best shooting rifles I have ever seen, and he will only true the action face and lap the lugs. He thinks everything else is just fluff. With his track record of routinely sending 1/4 MOA remington based hunting rifles out the door I have to think he is right.
I use the fixtures at times, sometimes I true them in the lathe depending on how I feel. I have not noticed any difference in accuracy. Still if it is a confidence issue, which I feel most of what we do to these actions is, you are probably better off sending your actions to the smith. If I recall I spent about 700+ tooling up to true actions.
Thanks... Very Informative. I have an older rem 700adl 243 that I am going to re-barrel myself with one of the rem-age barrels which allows one to re-barrel a remington action with a barrel nut system like the savages have. I thought it might be beneficial to try to true the action up a little first but want to do it myself. I am not to cheap to pay someone. I just like to tinker with things and think I would enjoy it. I don't have access to a lathe so I have been looking at the PTG stuff but wanted some input from others who may have some experience with these tools. Also I have seen videos with guys using compound to true the bolt lugs up and just opening and closing the bolt. Does this work?
rscott5028
Well-Known Member
Lapping the lugs is good.
But they need to be pretty true already, or you could be at it a long while.
Does lapping help? I dunno what the real effect is. It is easy and quick, so I do it usually. That is one of the things that someone could actually test the benefit of, but have never thought to test it. I guess the method would be to build a rifle without lapping, then shoot it. Then lap them adjust headspace if needed, then shoot it again to see. Someone ought to give that a test for the rest of us dummies to see if it really helps. Something else that would be interesting would be to then test the boltface truing tools. I like doing tests and am usually testing something....documentation of testing is another thing...I am not really prone to that.
Thank you guys very much for the replies. I am new to this site and fairly new to this long range stuff. I have asked several questions on here so far which I was afraid were stupid questions. I have always recieved very informative responses and I am very appreciative of that!!!!!
rscott5028
Well-Known Member
The biggest problem I see with hand tools is that it's easy to see a shiny surface. But, it's a lot harder to measure how true and concentric to the boreline you're really making everything.
Like Eddybo indicated, we probably overthink a lot of this. But, there are some things you can control before you squeeze the trigger and some things you can't. I don't know Don Geraci who Eddybo refers to. But, he may have enough experience and expertise to do a better job with hand tools than I could do with a lathe.
Provided you headspace correctly, etc... rebarreling and bedding alone may well get you a significant improvement over an old rifle with the original factory barrel. ...although a good 243 might outlive a lot of us.
If you can accept responsibility for the results, then get after it.
Otherwise, get it done by a smith with a lathe and a good track record.
Good luck!
Richard
Like Eddybo indicated, we probably overthink a lot of this. But, there are some things you can control before you squeeze the trigger and some things you can't. I don't know Don Geraci who Eddybo refers to. But, he may have enough experience and expertise to do a better job with hand tools than I could do with a lathe.
Provided you headspace correctly, etc... rebarreling and bedding alone may well get you a significant improvement over an old rifle with the original factory barrel. ...although a good 243 might outlive a lot of us.
If you can accept responsibility for the results, then get after it.
Otherwise, get it done by a smith with a lathe and a good track record.
Good luck!
Richard
Richard,
Don Geraci is a BR shooter and gun smith. Look at the NBRSA web site you will find him there, look for hall of fame. I think he set a mid range prone senior f-class record last year, but cannot atttest to that. I can attest that a bunch of certified BR world records hang in his shop and home, most have now been bested. I think he has a whole bunch of current ARG rimfire world records also. Most of his CF BR records were shot with a very worn out remington 700.
Don Geraci is a BR shooter and gun smith. Look at the NBRSA web site you will find him there, look for hall of fame. I think he set a mid range prone senior f-class record last year, but cannot atttest to that. I can attest that a bunch of certified BR world records hang in his shop and home, most have now been bested. I think he has a whole bunch of current ARG rimfire world records also. Most of his CF BR records were shot with a very worn out remington 700.
rscott5028
Well-Known Member
It's all relative.
He could probably blueprint an abused rifle with 320 grit sand paper and still out shoot me. ;-)
He could probably blueprint an abused rifle with 320 grit sand paper and still out shoot me. ;-)
Nah he is too old to shoot good
He shot a .4ish inch 600 yard 3 shot group last time he came to my range. Groups like that are anomalies, but some people have a knack of getting lucky more often than the rest of us.
I can tell you this, if you are a prarie dog within 1k yards of him you better hope he does not see where his first shot impacts. He is a master at correcting for his second shot....it is freakish how good he is.
He shot a .4ish inch 600 yard 3 shot group last time he came to my range. Groups like that are anomalies, but some people have a knack of getting lucky more often than the rest of us.
I can tell you this, if you are a prarie dog within 1k yards of him you better hope he does not see where his first shot impacts. He is a master at correcting for his second shot....it is freakish how good he is.
cummins cowboy
Well-Known Member
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- Nov 21, 2010
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with all the clones out there its getting to the point that putting in all the blueprinting work on a remington is about like building up a military mauser. I don't see myself as ever building anymore customs on factory rems.
When resale is considered that is probably the best info in this thread.
