rem 700 bolt sleeving

[lurcher]

When having a rem 700 action trued how important/necessary is bolt sleeving? Talked to a smith recently who suggests sleeving front and rear for a target/varmint gun and rear only for a hunting gun.

Some smiths epoxy the sleeves onto the bolt, how likely are these to stay put? Has anyone known them to lift off?

Also long versus short action is there more point to sleeving a long action as opposed to a short action?

 

[J E Custom]

When having a rem 700 action trued how important/necessary is bolt sleeving? Talked to a smith recently who suggests sleeving front and rear for a target/varmint gun and rear only for a hunting gun.

Some smiths epoxy the sleeves onto the bolt, how likely are these to stay put? Has anyone known them to lift off?

Also long versus short action is there more point to sleeving a long action as opposed to a short action?

I personally don't like sleeves at all. If the bolt is bad enough to need sleeving then I recomend
buying an over size bolt (They are only 4 or 5 thousandths larger) and reaming the action.
This will give you a better fit and you won't have to deal with sleeves.

This is a permanent fix and the sleeves are just temporary.

Just My opinion

J E CUSTOM

 

[ewallace]

I don't do sleeves. I don't like the way they look and think if you are going threw all the trouble to sleeve the bolt I would recommended a new bolt. I would Ream the raceway to .705 and install the new bolt, Square Receiver Face, Square receiver lugs, Threads re-cut, all done on same setup, lap lugs. Replace recoil lug with PTG recoil lug,

 

[BountyHunter]

sleeving is "old school" wnen nothing else was available.

PTG has fitted bolts that can be ordered in various dimensions to correctly fit your action and then sell the old bolt. Will cost you lot less than the sleeving and you get a bunch of extra features.

BH

 

[RJ338]

Ditto's on the last advise.

 

[NesikaChad]

I addressed this question once on BR central. It resulted in a chastising that no one seemed to be able to conclusively explain.

I'm going to be relying on memory for some of this so bear with me. Last spring I finished up a 243 verminator rifle for a buddy. It was on a Remmy 700.

The bore of the receiver had a .005" difference from the bolt's OD. I sat and crunched numbers in CAD and this change results in a possible angular deviation of .054" degrees from the top lug when the gun is in battery.

Remember, the cocking piece is climbing the sear in battery so the bolt is pushing on the rear bridge at the 12 o clock position. Factor in the length of the bolt and length of the swept arc the bolt lugs generate as it all plays in just how far out of whack things are going to get when there's slop between the action and the bolt.

What this boils down to is the top lug is tilting away from the action about .00022". As I'm fond of saying, NASA put a man on the moon in the 1960's. I really have to question if ANYTHING on a Saturn V rocket was held to .00022" for tolerance. The temperature variance alone compels me to say NO.

That being said I have a real difficult time accepting that a gun is going to be a lemon if the bolt is out of square by a value equivalent to a human hair being split 16 times. (.0035" / .00022) There's just too many non "accurized" rifles out there in gun land that hammer the X ring like a 16 year old does his date on prom night. I'll go one further to state that a good portion of the lathes out there are going to have a difficult time facing a part to this accuracy. Virtually anything below .001" requires a grinder as the surface finish condition alone creates dimensioning issues.

Bolt bushings IMHO exist so a guy can add another zero left of the decimal on the invoice when the gun's done. Save your money and spend it on gas/bullets for the range and PRACTICE!

Back to the rifle:

I built it without installing sleeves or without buying a replacement bolt from PTG. I tuned up the action in my CNC mill using a method I conjured up that is quite a bit different from the traditional GS method. In the end the gun shoots very well (borderline exceptional) and the customer is nothing but smiles and raves to the point of it being embarrassing at times.

Sleeves belong on shirts. If I ever was to buy a bolt body I wouldn't use a reamer to open the bore of the action. I'd either buy (already own one) a sunnen hone or I'd find an automotive shop and have them hone the action to size. Much better surface finishes and it'll be more round, slick, and uniform.

Hope this helped.


Chad

 

[texan79]

"...hammer the X ring like a 16 year old does his date on prom night." - Chad



Thats awesome. Good funny.