Action Trueness Test On My Old Remington 721 I Just Bought

Joel, the rod has just enough clearance so that with a twisting motion, you can push it in. The last little bit that fits is a tad bigger, just to tighten it up so it can not move as you indicate the action. I made the rod a while back when I set up and trued the face for Ed on his 280 Ackley Improved. So, Remington has been pretty consistant with that size through the years.

The rod is machined from StressProof. I see no evidence of the action being warped, as the boltway is very straight and true. The missmatched action face and threads are nothing more than the product of a flawed machine shop practice. Or, at least "flawed" in the sense that however they did it, the results produced fits that were not truly straight with others.

The truing rod id the same one I use for the final inspection test. Just goes in the other end.........jackie
 
Jackie,
could you explain the bolt end of things ?, locking lugs, lug abutments inside the action,bolt nose being parallel with the action face and square with the chamber. How would this be checked/corrected.
Thanks again,
Joel
 
Joel, the bolt is idependent of the threads and action face, in that the back half of the action can be square and true with it's own self, and be out with the threads and action face.

As far as the front of the bolt goes, nothing has to run dead true except the bolt face. That is, unless something is so far out as to cause interferrence with something.

If you have good lug contact, I see no reason to mess with either the abutments in the action, or the back of the locking lugs. This particular old action has great lugg contact, and as I said before, the bolt way seems dead on straight.

If the lugs are not both making contact, you can take a light skin over both abutments in the action at the same time you do the face and action face. The key is to take as little as possible off, as you do not want to screw up the primary extraction travel.

You can set the bolt up in the same manner as if you were going to bush the firing pin, (on a steady reast) run a last word indictor on the back of the lugs to see just how much runnout they have. It will surprise how true most of them run.

You can then check the bolt face, I generally take a very light skin over it, if for any other reason, just to smooth it up, as most Factory bolt faces are pretty rough. You can do this on a Remington, by using a little hook tool that will get behind the extractor. Just be carefull. Keep in mind, to do this type of checking and correcting, you have to have a lathe that has just about "zero" backlash in the spindle thrust..........jackie
 
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My concern with Remington recoil lugs is that they are very soft. The factory blanks them , which requires very soft steel.
Looking at the edges , its very clear thats the process used. I have checked a few and found them around 4 Rockwell C.
Considering the amount of real clamped surface, and the hardness of BBls and actions, I wouldn't say this is good.
Imagine a lug made of brass or even aluminum sandwhiched in between two steel surfaces under pressure.
 
Bob,
Other than looks an aluminum recoil lug would be fine with me if it were flat and the receiver is properly bedded. It would just look ugly.
Butch
 
The factory 700 lugs are stamped out and they work fine for what they are... There are many aftermarket lugs and no one has done a conclusive test that make any of them superior, at least that I am aware of. Other than on rifles that have blown up I have not seen a 700 lug bent from recoil.
 
I would not be concerned that a soft recoil lug would deform from 10-20 ft lbs of recoil, even made of Alum. However,
when we torque a bbl to 120 ft lbs, the surfaces are loaded in thousands of lbs psi.. The softer material reaches its
limit in plastic deformation much sooner than the action and bbl.
 
I have removed hundreds and hundreds of 700 barrels... and I have never seen a recoil lug deformed by compression between the barrel and the action.
 
This barrel was tight, I had to use a hammer on my big Brownells Action Wrench to break it loose. The recoil lug showed no signs of being deformed.

When I faced it, it cut like mild steel.......jackie
 
Bob Kingsbury said:
I would not be concerned that a soft recoil lug would deform from 10-20 ft lbs of recoil, even made of Alum. However,
when we torque a bbl to 120 ft lbs, the surfaces are loaded in thousands of lbs psi.. The softer material reaches its
limit in plastic deformation much sooner than the action and bbl.
Click to expand...

Aluminum will also cold flow to release stress. So if the barrel was tight when it was installed, it could be less tight a few days later. An aluminum recoil lug isn't likely to be an improvement on a steel one.

Fitch
 
Guys, I thing that for 90 percent of applications, we are searching for solutions to non existant problems when it comes to recoil lugs..........jackie
 
I am working on a 40-X repeater for my son. My barrel vice , and wrench will remove most any thing. This rem would not even budge. I sawed the barrel off, and bored out he tenon, and I mean all of the tenon. I had some used rem. barrels around. They would screw in about .250 from bottom, and then stopped cold, the action face looked just like it was finished on a disc sander. This is a 40-X repeater with the selected part's from the custom shop you here about. I don't know who made this rifle, but I'll bet his tool box has a stone axe, abd tiger tooth chisel in it
 
Many Remingtons are put together with Loctite or similar product. Not all were. This is true today as well as 50 years ago. I have had some tough ones to get apart... the worst required a little heat from a propane torch on the action... less heat than soft solder... and a good wrench.
 
My action wrench is as big, and heavy as the hydrant wrench's we used on the fire dept.The vice is 1.50" thick, by 8'' long held together with 1/2" hold down bolt's. In use! it is bolted to a solid cast iron, 3' Sunstrand bench center, and the vice use's split aluminum ring's. If you can't remove a barrel with this, how did they put it in there.The action was washed out using hot soapy water, a dental pick, and a tooth brush. My take off rem. barrel's would not screw into this action. I would think a skilled craftman would have noticed something very wrong. Why would you use loc-tite on a properly fiied barrel. It's the cost of one of those thing's that get's me. A while back I asked about fitting a Savage bolt head to a Rem. bolt. That project is done, and came out very well
 
Johnson, a while back, a friend brought over a Rem 700 that he said was sure the Factory Barrel was too tight for his little Benchrest Rig. So, I put the barrel in by big Brownell Vise, clamped that big wrench around the action, and braced myself for a good whack with a 4 pound sledge. I gave it a light tap to align the hammer, and guess what, it just came loose. It had a lot of that old powdery white stuff on the threads.

This was a Brand new Rifle that he had bought at Academy just to get the action.

As I said before, others I have had to really knock the crap out of that big slugging wrench to break it loose. Go figure.

By the way, you used terms like "properly fitted" and "skilled craftsmen" in the same context with "Factory". These are massed produced Rifles that are assembled to perform a specific purpose. They are no more "precision" than they have to be to perform that function. .........jackie
 
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My vice is a Brownell copy, and every bit as big, the wrench is much bigger.If a 40-X is a massed produced rifle, then sell it as such. They should list it as some assembly reguired.
 
Jackie,
thanks for the bolt truing explanation. I hope you plan to continue the "show and tell" when you chamber that new barrel. Good stuff !
Joel
 
I have to call Dave Kiff tomorrow at Pacific Tool and Gage and get a minimum spec 30-06 reamer and a Headspace Gage. I see where they also sell Rem BDL bottom metal, the originol is pretty rough, and of course, is not hinged. Might as well one stop shop.

What is a good freebore length for the '06, keeping in mind that most of the shooting will be with Ballistic Tips, A Max's, and that new Hornady Match Bullet.? I'm Thinking around .100.......jackie
 
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German, on Dave's recommendation, I am going to get your reamer that he said you use in open F-Class. I will have it in a couple of weeks, also the bottom metal.

By the way, have you tried that new Hornady offerring . They are making 30 cal in three weights for long range shooting on the new AMP Jackets that they claim are pretty darned good. I think the weights are 178, 208, 225.

I guess I need to call Bill Shehane and get a 8-32 Nightforce on order........jackie
 
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