Trueing a 700 action cost?

[Trickymissfit]

Gary,
When you posted 4 years ago that came up with the same mods as me for the co-ax, I was shocked. And you said you were a retired machinist.
http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f28/hard-time-between-forster-redding-83133/index5.html

I remember thinking, that I were managing your life [me being such a selfish schemer], that you [being that smart], you would have made a lot more money than a machinist.

Now it looks like I was wrong. You did ok.

A machinist I once was, but also a machine builder. The machinist part was just something that was added to the pile close to fifty years ago. Yes I made a hell of a lot of my own parts, and always had some sort of a "government job" on the burner. Still running a wire EDM is not something I could readily do. I can do basic things on a machine center, but never tried to do much of the fancy stuff. Running a mill or a hand lathe is much more comfortable for me anyway. I had a crew to do the fancy stuff. External grinders still scare me, as I can't see chips. Surface grinding or internal work is a breeze. Building machines leads you into learning how they work. Putting them back together shows what won't work. I can safely say I've never wrecked a machine, but have repaired many that were wrecked.

Building machines actually is a lot of fun once you get your head strait. I love the world of super precision measurement. Yet I can say I've lost a lot of sleep more than once! After awhile getting it right becomes the only game in town. Built a lot of machine centers, and they will often separate the men from the boys when the error starts stacking up. Grinders are not all that bad once you know where the pit falls are. Still there are lots of pit falls to trap you in. I hated the term good enough. It's a cop out for not doing the job 100%. So what am I not so hot at? Truthfully; it's gears. I can get by, but never thought I was great at them. Once again I had somebody to bail me out. Spur gears yes, but the rest will make me pull my hair out!
gary

 

[J E Custom]

Follow on question for you guys. How could a gullible layman like me, determine that the gunsmith did true the action and not just charge me for it? I doubt I would be able to measure anything to verify. And as Hired Gun alludes, if my shooting skills weren't up to it, I probably couldn't tell anyway.

Another good question.

I have seen "Trued actions" That were not touched and the owner paid for it. But the reason I was looking at it was that it wouldn't shoot and I found other things that were not done that should have been. You have to trust the smith to do what you want. Bolt face work, bolt lug and a precision ground recoil lug are signs that some attempt to do a proper job have been made.

Many times you can re barrel a rifle without truing the action and get away with it. But it's the time that you don't that hurts.

Truing an action is only one part of a custom rebuild, There are many other things that have to be done right in order to end up with a accurate rifle Consistently.

Blue printing is an attempt to align everything with the bore. This assures that if a concentric chamber is done the rifle should shoot well with proper loading and skill.

Every misalignment or less than the best workmanship adds to inaccuracy in my opinion and if enough of these "Minor" problems exist, poor accuracy is very possible. A long time ago I bough a
factory rifle that shot very well (1/2 MOA) and was very happy with it so many years later I decided to set the shoulder back and freshen the chamber. After disassembly, I started the total dimensioning of all components and was astounded at the lack of precision. before I started I re assembled all components to see why it shot so well. first I found that the recoil lug was .0025
out of flat/true. the receiver face needed .003+ removed to be square. the bolt face and bolt recoil lugs were also out of square. they all seemed to cancel out any error and came close when assembled. the chamber was also not concentric to the bore and needed a full thread to clean up.

After truing everything up and reassembling it actually shot better buy almost a 1/4 MOA so my work was not in vain.

Sometimes if things are not perfect they will/can cancel out discrepancies but when these errors combine, a poor preforming rifle can be the end effect.

I will not do a rebuild without Blue printing the action because to the inconsistencies in the final
product. Again it is not the only thing that needs to be done correctly, It is just one (A very important one in my opinion) I am not willing to risk getting away with something when it is easier
to do it right the first time.

The cost of blue printing will vary gunsmith to gunsmith But knowing that he will do this work and do it correctly is more important because unfortunately, most will not be able to verify that the work is done unless the rifle shoots great.

My definition of great is = 1/2 MOA is good, 1/4 MOA is great, 1/10th MOA is outstanding.

Just my opinion

J E CUSTOM

 

[just country]

very good explanation. very good smithy can show a customer the process

of all machine work done on a custom build. I took a weatherby 9lug action

to my smithy. I told him the things I wanted done. was told that west german made

weatherby actions normally do not need a lot of machining. Pete Pheifer Hempstead

TX. one man operation. very very good smithy.

the old rem. actions on the normal r very good actions. I use the LA 721

actions.lightbulb

 

[Canadian Bushman]

in 1990, I bought 12 Okuma Kadets for $325K a piece untooled, but with chucks and cylinders (SP). They had the tail stock and upper and lower turrets. After tooling, I had about $440K in each machine. In 1995 I bought six much larger lathes at about $600K a piece untooled. Same basic configuration on three of them, and the others were simply chuckers with some options. Ready to run was close to $800K. The cheapest machine center I've ever bought was $350K untooled. Had $500K in each machine (Monarchs). On the same buy I bought 8 Devliegs and two SIP's. The Devliegs ran $560K a piece, and the SIP was $760K. One SIP had no tooling bought for it and was kept in a lab for precision measurements. The other went to the tool room, and sat alongside four others. I had roughly $1.3 million in each Devlieg tooled up, but still on the skid plate. Later I bought five more Devlieg jig mills, plus one K Model for a tic under a million a piece untooled. Keep in mind these are 1985 dollars!

In 2000 I bought four G&L MM2300 machine centers in a turn key deal. Roughly $1.5 million a piece. Bought two G&L RAM 630's at $660K a piece. Could have bought cheaper stuff, but also would be buying into somebody's poison.

Then you get to buy spare parts! Buy a hundred ball screws for lathes sometime. Two duplex bearing sets for the G&L MM2300 spindle will hit you for over $10K!
gary

Yup!
Pretty typical among high quality CNC's

 

[cab]

Another good question.

I have seen "Trued actions" That were not touched and the owner paid for it. But the reason I was looking at it was that it wouldn't shoot and I found other things that were not done that should have been. You have to trust the smith to do what you want. Bolt face work, bolt lug and a precision ground recoil lug are signs that some attempt to do a proper job have been made.

Many times you can re barrel a rifle without truing the action and get away with it. But it's the time that you don't that hurts.

Truing an action is only one part of a custom rebuild, There are many other things that have to be done right in order to end up with a accurate rifle Consistently.

Blue printing is an attempt to align everything with the bore. This assures that if a concentric chamber is done the rifle should shoot well with proper loading and skill.

Every misalignment or less than the best workmanship adds to inaccuracy in my opinion and if enough of these "Minor" problems exist, poor accuracy is very possible. A long time ago I bough a
factory rifle that shot very well (1/2 MOA) and was very happy with it so many years later I decided to set the shoulder back and freshen the chamber. After disassembly, I started the total dimensioning of all components and was astounded at the lack of precision. before I started I re assembled all components to see why it shot so well. first I found that the recoil lug was .0025
out of flat/true. the receiver face needed .003+ removed to be square. the bolt face and bolt recoil lugs were also out of square. they all seemed to cancel out any error and came close when assembled. the chamber was also not concentric to the bore and needed a full thread to clean up.

After truing everything up and reassembling it actually shot better buy almost a 1/4 MOA so my work was not in vain.

Sometimes if things are not perfect they will/can cancel out discrepancies but when these errors combine, a poor preforming rifle can be the end effect.

I will not do a rebuild without Blue printing the action because to the inconsistencies in the final
product. Again it is not the only thing that needs to be done correctly, It is just one (A very important one in my opinion) I am not willing to risk getting away with something when it is easier
to do it right the first time.

The cost of blue printing will vary gunsmith to gunsmith But knowing that he will do this work and do it correctly is more important because unfortunately, most will not be able to verify that the work is done unless the rifle shoots great.

My definition of great is = 1/2 MOA is good, 1/4 MOA is great, 1/10th MOA is outstanding.

Just my opinion

J E CUSTOM

Sent you a pm about truing a Weatherby action. Please let me know what you think. Thanks...

 

[J E Custom]

Sent you a pm about truing a Weatherby action. Please let me know what you think. Thanks...

Sorry, I didn't get it. Try again.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Standbanger]

so you can't do it with a pipe wrench, a hacksaw, and a file ? no wonder I cant hit the broadside of a barn

 

[Canadian Bushman]

so you can't do it with a pipe wrench, a hacksaw, and a file ? no wonder I cant hit the broadside of a barn

You cant fix an action with the same tools that remington used to create it.