a new rifle

[tired]

does anyone make an action thats blueprinted out of the box? my current plans are 700 action blueprinted, mcmillan a4 or a5 shillon barrel 300 rum(can you improve it by fire forming?) with a nightforce 5.5-22 nxs r2,180 or 190 mk my goal is to get 100 to 1000 yd with 1/2 to 3/4 moa

 

[Sako7STW]

Ok, I am going to make myself into a complete fool here but I have to ask. What is blueprinting an action? Is it simply that action's diagram with all the pertanent information on it? I remember back in the Hot Rod days the big thing was a blueprinted and Balanced motor. Well the balancing helped but blueprinting was just mearly for information but alot of guys made it out to be something that gained you horse power and it didnt do a dang thing for ya. Unless your tearing your motor apart and replacing one component that needs to match another exactly.

 

[littletoes]

What about the 40X? Imagine that several gunsmiths can blueprint an action for you.
Sako7STW-There is no dumb question! Its just like blueprinting an engine. How many of them engines, do you think had way too much material on them? Or holes not cut exactly like they should. High performance motors are blueprinted, tolerances are tighter. You take the specs, or "blue-prints", and cut the action to match exacly to where everything is supposed to be. Remember, when things come down an assembly line, tools get dull, and "off" a little.

[ 02-29-2004: Message edited by: littletoes ]

 

[*WyoWhisper*]

OK.. I'll put my butt on the line here...

I have often wondered what blueprinting was.. to be honest I never really new but over the years and hearing guys talk about it I just came to the conclusion they were talking in terms of how a smith would "true" that action.. ie" lugs lapped, bolt face squared, action square to the barrel etc. etc. etc. when that whole process is complete the action is then " blue printed" I could be wrong but over the years and hearong guys talk about it.. I have assumed thats what they meant...

To answer the questions...

I think the only way you get a " blue printed" action outta the box is to go through a custom chop ie : Rem 40X or the Win shops.. but honestly if you trying to save money to get into the LR game and trying to do it cheap...

Buy a used LR rig from someone... or just wait and save your money.. it took me 2 years to save for my first LR/custom rig!

You could always go the Sendero route and get the action trued.. but thats pretty pointless without a custom barrel...

 

[AJ300MAG]

Blueprinting the action means to make it square and eliminate the runout from the bolt axis. The rear surface of the lugs are trued square to the bolt, then the bearing surface in the action is trued to the bolt bore. The front of the action is cut square to the bolt bore, and the barrel threads are recut so that they are concentric to the bolt bore (only if a custom barrel is being added). If stock barrel is being used, the barrel shoulder will be recut to true it square to the bore axis. They can go as far as to ream the bolt bore on the action (it may be out of round and have a tapered hole) and then sleeve the bolt. Depends on how much money you have to spend. Your trying to eliminate tolerance stack-up and make everything dead nuts true. Say the front of the action is .004" out of square, the barrel shoulder is .004" out also. They might cancel each other out, then again, think of where the barrel is pointing if the index if at worst case (.008"). Hope this helps

 

[Ian M]

AJ gave a very good description of action work. George Gardner explained it to me as imagining that there is a perfectly straight line going through the exact center of the receiver, bolt and barrel. Everything is made as parallel or square to that line as possible. Then some of the other necessary "truenesses" are established. Hope that gives another bit of light on the process (also hope it is correct

)

 

[chris matthews]

You all are right and wrong at the same time. You are right in the description of true-ing up an action.
However if it was blueprinted as alot of 'smith's call it, the action would be trued to certain specs as set by a blueprint.
Car engines are blueprinted, that's why I can take the heads off a 76 Chevy 350 and put them on a 80ish 350. But since actions are not blueprinted you can't swap barrels without re-headspacing them. Make sense?

 

[AJ300MAG]

Chris, bad example with the car engine. Yes, when we're machining the block at the factory we have blueprints to work from. With blueprints you have tolerances. Take the deck height of the block (we called it a "case"). It's measured from the crank centerline to the head deck. If I remember right, we had .020" tolerance on this dimension, with the 4 corners having to be within .005 of each other. Most of us Toolmakers have enough pride in our work to set the fixture to cut flat within .002". As the machine wore the dimensions would creep to the outer limits. To "blueprint" the engine as we call it, the machine shop will mill this surface to within .001" of being flat, to the low end of the height, and equal on both banks. The idea is to bring everything to zero tolerance/right on the basic dimension. If you have a 85 thru 96 350/305 V8, built at Flint Engine, odds are that it's got my fingerprints somewhere on it

[ 02-29-2004: Message edited by: AJ300MAG ]

 

[Brent]

In engine building and machining, there are acceptable tolerances and clearances. Blueprinting for an engine or whatever, the way I understand it, technically, is done before or after the work is performed, either to establish the specifications and or to define them.

So, is this term used loosely? In my understanding it certainly is. That word does not guarentee what you want done will be done, probably someones interpretation of it maybe done, but unless you specify the actual machine work you want done, I wouldn't count on it.

In reality, your rifle is blueprinted from the factory to an extent, just not what you and I equate to blueprinting, same with a factry engine, sorry AJ, but I'm sure you'll agree. If you want minimum spec ring end gap, get oversize and start filing. If you want every oz. of oil pumped from the pan filtered, you better tap and plug the bypass valve then. Port match the intake and exhaust for best flow and scavenging to increase VE. And there is so very much more to blueprinting a race engine I won't even go into it. Makes the rifle look all too simplistic though!

 

[chris matthews]

Yes, there are tolerances, but the is now blueprint for true-ing an action. Rem has BP that they build to, but custom smith's this does not exist. My point is the term is used loosely if not incorrectly.

 

[*WyoWhisper*]

Well, hell I'm sending my rifles back to Chris.. I asked for blueprinted actions and all I got was trued ones!!
If I had only known what the hell I was talking about...
Thanks Chris for clearing that up!

Now I am wondering how many guys ask for a blueprinted action and actually supply you with the blueprints???

 

[Agunner012]

The way the term "Blue Printing" any action was explained to me is: The smith has a set of blue prints, or a drawing of the action and all the specs. The action is then machined to those "specs" and tolerances. Either the smith makes the drawing, or it is supplied to him. The point is he has exact "directions" to follow.

I guess it would be similar to building a house off of prints. If the print calls for using 2x6 construction on all walls, it better have 2x6 on the walls.

Andrew

 

[AJ300MAG]

Brent, I used to have a paper that described what Hendrick does to their motors, more like a book! GM tightened so many of our tolerances that the quality of the factory motor was unbelieveable. They had full expectation for a smallblock, with proper maintenance to last for 300,000 miles. I can give you a clue though, its called "Mobil 1" As sais "blueprinting" is used in the wrong context, for a gun it has more to do with removing everything thats out of square, or in a M700 case, putting the dang scope mount screws back in alignment with the bolt axis

 

[AJ300MAG]

Chris, might I ask, Do you have specific dimensions you try to hold, say as an example, when your squaring up the action face, other than eliminating the runout? I understand that if your rebarreling you measure the boltnose and make the barrel counterbore to a specific size, you might create your own blueprint.

Ya gotto do something with that guy from Wyoming, his slobber is making my keyboard messy

[ 03-01-2004: Message edited by: AJ300MAG ]