Truing versus not truing Rem 700's

CYanchycki

CYanchycki

Club Coordinator
So what is the thoughts on truing versus not truing when rebarreling a Rem 700 to say a 6BR or 6/6.5X47?

I have heard of a so called gunsmith who feels it is not necessary.

What about if there is any importance as to bushing the firing pin to have a better hit nearer the center on the primer?

Could the offset hit on the small rifle primer of the above mentioned calibers cause hang fires?

I was asked these questions but I do not have the answers so I said I would try and find them.

Calvin
 
CYanchycki said:
So what is the thoughts on truing versus not truing when rebarreling a Rem 700 to say a 6BR or 6/6.5X47?

I have heard of a so called gunsmith who feels it is not necessary.

What about if there is any importance as to bushing the firing pin to have a better hit nearer the center on the primer?

Could the offset hit on the small rifle primer of the above mentioned calibers cause hang fires?

I was asked these questions but I do not have the answers so I said I would try and find them.

Calvin
Click to expand...

You may find a 700 that may be quite true but if one wants to get the most out of a re-barreling job I would always recommend truing the action. It is not hard to get an un-trued action shooting in the 3's.
Bushing the pin is usually more for a smaller tip diameter which will handle more pressure before primer failure.
Offset firing pins can cause a misfire...that is failure to fire... I have seen it... but it was in Ruger .308 and it was so far off it was striking between the center of the primer and the edge... I doubt it could cause a hangfire.
 
The decision to true or not should be based on the action itself. If it is close to straight, centered, threads inline, no bolt slop, you would be wasting your time and money. If the threads are tipped, or the bolt is sloppy, or many other parameters are out of spec, then you have to make a basic financial decision. Is it worth adding $300-$600 to the cost, not value, of this project? If you are doing the work yourself, then by all means, go for it. If you are having it done for you, you really would be ahead, both now and years from now, by starting from scratch w/ a custom action and building a whole new rifle.

Just one man's voice of experience
 
L. E. Hanson said:
Oh My! Calvin, you are treading on sacred ground! You need someone like Bob Brackney for input on this one.
LE Hanson
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I figured as much but I said I would ask the question and I did.

Myself personally (and I am not the gunsmith) a rebarrel on a 700 should at least include the truing of the action face, threads, lugs or lapping for fit. I know there are all the what if's that go into doing up a 700.

From what I have heard the man in question feels it is not warranted at all. I have no idea if the actions are even checked for trueness. I do know for a fact that there are rifles he has supposedly rebarreled that have gone to another smith to fix issues with the job. When I hear people talking of using this person I just tell them to choose WISELY. It does not cost an arm and a leg to ship to a REPUTEABLE person.

Thanks guys.
 
Calvin,
I just bought a 700 short action "flat black" rifle for less than $200, just to get the action. I will true it, because I can do it myself and it's for my grandson. If I had to PAY to get it trued, the decision might be to use a different action. Like everything, "your mileage may vary!"

Most of my stuff is old, but this is a chance to get my hands on a recent Remington product and measure just how true a "new" action is. What I plan to do is cut a blank barrel stub in the lathe, thread the action on, & measure the run out of a close fitting mandrel. Then I'll face the action & measure again. If it's close enough, I may not rethread, but it would be interesting to see what result each truing step gives.

Got the week off at Christmas, so I should have time to do it then.

Regards, Ron
 
Let me know what you find. I have heard there can be little or a lot of runout but it would be nice to see the difference if there is any.

Calvin
 
Every 700 action I have trued has had tipped threads, crooked face, and the lug recesses not cut even... varying degrees of inaccuracies whether an old action or a new one. That being said I am sure any of them would have easily been made into a sub 1/2 inch rifle with no truing and a good barrel. Titanium actions have been the only quite true actions I have seen.
 
My questions is this. Remington is a Billion dollar company ( i would assume) with state of the art equipment ( i would also assume) So why are these action crooked? If the machines are set up properly why are they turning out crooked actions? The only thing i can think of would have to do with the heat treating. maybe they do all the machine work before they heat treat, but even at that why are the treads bogus? Lee
 
It's called 'mass producing'... and until serious Benchrest Shooters came along, it was good enough... but it was never seriously made for the accuracy levels reached today...
 
Skeet, the big culprit is probably "second and third" operation machining. Ever looked at face of the reciever. Heck, it is obvious it is finished on some sort of grinder, and not single pointed when other machining operations are performed. I have NEVER seen a Remington 700 action that had a truly square action face. By square, I mean square with the bolt way.

Any machinist will attest to the fact that you can never set a piece up as accurate as it originally was once you remove it from a setup. I personally can testify that even some customs have the same problem. In production work, (and yes, all actions are "production" produced"), second and third operations on areas that are supposed to run dead true with others from previous set-ups are always plagued with certain flaws.

Calvin, bushing a firing pin will not cure the off center primer strike. The things are usually in the center of the bolt, just way too sloppy, hence the cratering of primers with just "normal" loads.

The reason the firing pin strike is off center is the action threads are not in the center of the bolt way, and the chamber is not in the center of the barrel threads. This can only be cured my remachining the criticle areas truly straight with a predetermined entity, which is usuually the bolt way.

The very least I will do to a Remington is face the action reciever true, since this is relative easy to do. Along with that, do the recoil lug as well, sandwitching a out of square lug between the barrel and the action produces the same malady as does a crooked action face........jackie
 
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RJM said:
Calvin,
I just bought a 700 short action "flat black" rifle for less than $200, just to get the action. I will true it, because I can do it myself and it's for my grandson. If I had to PAY to get it trued, the decision might be to use a different action. Like everything, "your mileage may vary!"

Most of my stuff is old, but this is a chance to get my hands on a recent Remington product and measure just how true a "new" action is. What I plan to do is cut a blank barrel stub in the lathe, thread the action on, & measure the run out of a close fitting mandrel. Then I'll face the action & measure again. If it's close enough, I may not rethread, but it would be interesting to see what result each truing step gives.

Got the week off at Christmas, so I should have time to do it then.

Regards, Ron
Click to expand...

Friday I had the chance to pull the barrel off the 700. They are still using some sort of locktite/glue on the theads, but not as bad as some older ones. After cleaning out the glue with a wire wheel on a dremel tool, I turned up a mandrel to fit the action snuggly (needs a bit of persuasion to fit though the action). The face of the action cleaned up with a .003 cut, and the locking lug seats in the receiver shows almost full contact.

Rather than turn up a new threaded spud, I threaded on a barrel that I had threaded, running the steady rest on a portion of the barrel that I had trued when the barrel was threaded. Runout on the mandrel was measured about 1/2" back of the rear tang. Pressing on the action showed no slop in the fit.

The runout of the mandrel was .028", which I don't feel is too bad for what it is - a bottom of the line production action, not a custom action. Farther out on the mandrell the runout was magnified more, so it appears the thread is cocked at an angle. The runout of .014 per side, magnified by the maybe 6" of mandrel from the threads is about only 0.13 degrees runout.

I also tried this with a second barrel that I had threaded the same way & got the same results. I'll see if I can find time to true the threads, and re-run the test.

Regards, Ron
 
a few years back I rebuilt a 700VS that was not even a good tomato stake. The action was pretty square (less than .001" TIR), and the barrel threads ran right on center of the bolt raceway. The bolt seating area was with in a couple thousandths on the reciever. They did leave one very big and ugly burr in there for the bolt to seat on! The bolt face itself was less than .0005" out of square, and the lugs cleaned up within two thousandths. One thing I didn't check (and should have) was to see how correctly aligned the trigger group was. I thought the worst part of the machining was in the bolt itself. The action looked like it was mostly machine in one operation on a CNC lathe, and then sent to one of the Monarch HMC's they have (too good for one of their Cortland built VMC's). The action looked like it had also been accross a broach that needed a long weekend of repairs done to it (as well as a complete realignment of the slide). I built up a thread gauge to check the threads befor doing anything to it, and was surprised to see less than .001" taper in them (somewhere around .00075"). If I'd done over again, I'd have gotten my hands on a new bolt of much better quality
gary
 
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