Custom Rimfire Actions

J

Jay Cutright

New member
What custom rimfire actions are currently winning most of the registered benchrest matches?

Is there one that's obviously better or do you think they all are so good that any will do as well as the others with a great barrel and the right ammo?
 
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Glad that is what you said Gordon as that is what you told me to order, which I have! Will let you know when the action and the barrel are in.

Bob

P.S. - I assume from you First Name and Last initial and your location, that you are the G.E. that Bob White sent me to in order to get a custom rig built.
 
From what I can understand the original turbo or the turbo clones have probably won more benchrest competitions than any other. With that being said I believe any of the top actions, turbo clones, anschutz, Stiller 2500X or various other types are capable of winning. I think it has more to do with the barrel and ammo. Regardless of what Mr Calfee thinks people such as Joe Besche have won with an anschutz action. Winning does not require a pas, triple lug, turbo action.The current ARA aggregate record is held by a 2500X action I think. Buy whatever you prefer and get the right barrel and ammo and you have a combination capable of winning.
 
Jay
A 2500x action out of the box will shoot with any action out there. You can read a lot of crap about the other exceptions but the 2500x has it all. Simple. Buy one fit and chamber a barrel proper. Then you are set to go.
 
drknite said:
From what I can understand the original turbo or the turbo clones have probably won more benchrest competitions than any other. With that being said I believe any of the top actions, turbo clones, anschutz, Stiller 2500X or various other types are capable of winning. I think it has more to do with the barrel and ammo. Regardless of what Mr Calfee thinks people such as Joe Besche have won with an anschutz action. Winning does not require a pas, triple lug, turbo action.The current ARA aggregate record is held by a 2500X action I think. Buy whatever you prefer and get the right barrel and ammo and you have a combination capable of winning.
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I figured I might hear something like this.
I have some stocks getting made on a CNC router table, very similar to the Robertson BRX with some computer aided design changes per my request. I'm going use one of them to build a rimfire benchrest rifle.
I haven't bought one yet and the stocks will be done soon awaiting my order for what action to route the basic inlet.

There's a fellar in my home town here that aquired a second hand Hall rifle that has a little issue with the feed ramp. He brought it to my shop to look at but it is glued in and I didn't want to break it loose until after his next match, the last one of the year.

I called Mr Hall to ask about the feed ramp in his actions and got a little education while I was on the phone with him. The thing I remember most was that he said don't over think it just do what you do for your center fire builds with the biggest difference being in the way rimfire headspace and you should be able to build a good shooting rimfire.

He sounds like a helluva good fellar and that makes me think I would like to build on a Hall.

Given the time constraints I'm considering having the stock inletted for whatever brand they have the program for and let that narrow my choice down to probably a turbo or a 2500x and I believe that Hall action would fit that same basic inlet as well.
 
GordonE said:
Jay
A 2500x action out of the box will shoot with any action out there. You can read a lot of crap about the other exceptions but the 2500x has it all. Simple. Buy one fit and chamber a barrel proper. Then you are set to go.
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That makes it sound so easy! :)
 
I have one of the original turbos with all the work done by Mr Gordon Eck. It is a better rifle than I am a shooter. I recently had a 2500X action built. It is a quality piece of machining. You can't go wrong with the 2500X. I personally could care less what Mr. Calfee says about them.
 
drknite said:
I have one of the original turbos with all the work done by Mr Gordon Eck. It is a better rifle than I am a shooter. I recently had a 2500X action built. It is a quality piece of machining. You can't go wrong with the 2500X. I personally could care less what Mr. Calfee says about them.
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Did Bill Calfee have something negative to say about the Stillar 2500X?

Was there any one specific action that Mr Calfee praised for its perfection and ability to shoot killer accurate groups without modification?
 
Jay Cutright said:
I figured I might hear something like this.
I have some stocks getting made on a CNC router table, very similar to the Robertson BRX with some computer aided design changes per my request. I'm going use one of them to build a rimfire benchrest rifle.
I haven't bought one yet and the stocks will be done soon awaiting my order for what action to route the basic inlet.

There's a fellar in my home town here that aquired a second hand Hall rifle that has a little issue with the feed ramp. He brought it to my shop to look at but it is glued in and I didn't want to break it loose until after his next match, the last one of the year.

I called Mr Hall to ask about the feed ramp in his actions and got a little education while I was on the phone with him. The thing I remember most was that he said don't over think it just do what you do for your center fire builds with the biggest difference being in the way rimfire headspace and you should be able to build a good shooting rimfire.

He sounds like a helluva good fellar and that makes me think I would like to build on a Hall.

Given the time constraints I'm considering having the stock inletted for whatever brand they have the program for and let that narrow my choice down to probably a turbo or a 2500x and I believe that Hall action would fit that same basic inlet as well.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty straight forward.
I would not presume to offer an opinion but I would pose a question for you.
If what you heard was as simple as that, why do you suppose very few centerfire smiths build rimfires and many of the very best want absolutely nothing to do with them?
Kinda makes one wonder.
 
Mr. Calfees problem with the stiller 2500X seems to stem from the fact that they don't need to be blueprinted by a gunsmith. Therefore there is no money to be made for Mr. Calfee. They are ready to go as they come from the factory.
 
Tim, it kinda makes me wonder too.

I have avoided rimfire as much as possible mostly because of the stories I read about smith's shooting and indexing the barrels and shooting again to get to a certain level of accuracy before the customer gets his rifle.

I've been chambering center fire barrels for 8 years with most of the barrels being duplicates that I haven't seen the action for in years.

The idea of shooting every barrel I work on sounds like a good way to go broke.

I will build my own rim fire and if someone else wants one they will probably shoot the first rounds through it while I'm working on the next project I have on the books.

In my opinion a lot of the fun and challenge of shooting is making my rifle shoot for me.

I do my best to build a rifle for anyone who comes to me to build for them. I use the components that the customer chooses and the customer accepts the opportunity to tune his or her rifle to suite thier needs. They don't need me to shoot it for them.
 
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Jay Cutright said:
Tim, it kinda makes me wonder too.

I have avoided rimfire as much as possible mostly because of the stories I read about smith's shooting and indexing the barrels and shooting again to get to a certain level of accuracy before the customer gets his rifle.

I've been chambering center fire barrels for 8 years with most of the barrels being duplicates that I haven't seen the action for in years.

The idea of shooting every barrel I work on sounds like a good way to go broke.

I will build my own rim fire and if someone else wants one they will probably shoot the first rounds through it while I'm working on the next project I have on the books.

In my opinion a lot of the fun and challenge of shooting is making my rifle shoot for me.

I do my best to build a rifle for anyone who comes to me to build for them. I use the components that the customer chooses and the customer accepts the opportunity to tune his or her rifle to suite thier needs.
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Sounds like you're off on a new adventure.....why not.
I'm one of the stupid ones that shoots both RF & CF so I appreciate the wonder of getting a freshly chambered barrel from my guy using my reamer and having cases fit perfectly.
FWIW he also is incredibly anal and will have nothing to do with .22's. Even ran it by Dwight Scott a few years back since he did a gun for me......not a chance.
That said, if I might offer one suggestion.....search around, read some stuff on how to reasonably evaluate a rimfire barrel, possibly slugging it, where to cut it to lenght and put the muzzle.
Unfortunately they are all, not created equally.....lots of varience, so it is not a bad idea to consider a couple blanks to pick from, getting a fine blank is the single most challanging part of the equation......good luck.
 
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There was a lot of talk about slugging on these forums when I was a competitor and "not" a gunsmith.
When I started gun smithing I bought a Gritters video about evaluating rifles for accuracy problems and brass rod so I could slug the barrels I was chambering. I still slug most of the barrels I chamber with the exception being when a customer wants a specific length of say 26" from a 27" blank and does not want to invest in anything except a chamber job.
There are some people that confident in their barrel maker of choice.
 
CF vs RF

We started in the CF BR game. Curtis and I started by building Viper actions and our guns. Thought we know quite a bit at the start. Turned out we knew a little but learned a lot. We built all of our own guns and did pretty good with them. We started getting into the detailed minutia of barrels, bullets etc and after about 15 years figured we pretty well had it sorted out, and for CF probably did. Then I started shooting rimfire BR. Ed Shilen put an octagon on a new rimfire action I built. Shot pretty good at times. As the kind of guy that always does his own work, I had to do mine too. Bought reamers etc and figured it couldn't be that much different. When I started, I bought a barrel, cut an inch off the back, reamer chambered it, crowned it and shot it. Didn't win much.

Fast forward to now.

NOW I get the barrels, slug them, cuss, get more, slug them, pick one, maybe lap on it, determine where to cut the crown, chamber it on the CNC lathe (I bought pretty much just to do that) with a custom boring bar, painstakingly finish the chamber, crown, etc etc and try it out. Some shoot, some don't. I know why CF guys don't do rimfire. Rimfire has 10x the amount of crap that matters. Between chamber size, lead size/type, engraving, finishing, lapping, etc etc the correct combination is hard to get. ANY little thing wrong and it just won't shoot good enough to do anything at a national level. Add to that the fact damn near no one does it and fewer help, it gets even tougher. Gives a good level of satisfaction when you finally get a few good shooting barrels. I want to thank Ed Shilen, Gordon Eck, Richard Gorham, Tom Wilkenson and Dan Killough (and anyone else I missed) for all the help, advice and collaboration on the journey.

I recommend that if you do your own work, get ready for an adventure/journey. Its lots of fun and when you near the end, its finally satisfying. Hopefully one day I will get there.

stiller
 
Jay Cutright said:
There was a lot of talk about slugging on these forums when I was a competitor and "not" a gunsmith.
When I started gun smithing I bought a Gritters video about evaluating rifles for accuracy problems and brass rod so I could slug the barrels I was chambering. I still slug most of the barrels I chamber with the exception being when a customer wants a specific length of say 26" from a 27" blank and does not want to invest in anything except a chamber job.
There are some people that confident in their barrel maker of choice.
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As to your last point, IMHO nobody, repeat nobody makes a rimfire barrel as consistant as we'd all love to see.....it's just that hard, if you want to win.
Some are more consistant.....by far, but do your homework.
 
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