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Custom actions vs blueprinting a Remington

Grizzlypeg

Aluminum
Joined
Aug 20, 2012
Location
Canada
What do you think of custom actions like the Barnard, Pierce, Stiller (sorry if I have the names wrong) etc vs buying a new Remington 700 and having the action blueprinted? In terms of the economics, I see the Remington would cost me a rifle ($550 SPS to say $675 for a stainless) plus the blueprinting, vs around $1,000 and up for the custom actions that are certainly superior to a factory remington receiver and I'm not sure if they are as good, or better than a blueprinted action. This is for an application of target shooting, and the receiver accompanied by a top end stock and barrel.

Is there anything I should know that goes beyond saying they are comparable, but two different paths?
 
Economy wise all said and done it's probably as cheap or cheaper to go with the custom receiver that is already blueprinted, vs buying a new rem 700 and having it blueprinted.
Now if you already have a rem 700 that you want to re barrel that's a different story.
Then if you are so inclined you could do it yourself there is the investment in some tools though.
End product the custom is arguably better, definitely the easier way to go.
 
first you must ask yourself what the use of the action is going to be, what features you need, what features you want and what features you don't want or need.

edit: chances are if you are going to be spending $5-$600+ to get a remington action and then pay someone to true it, you are going to be better off starting with an aftermarket action no matter what the end use of the rifle is going to be.
 
If you check the local pawn shops you can often find a remington with a rusty barrel or a nasty lookin stock for around 300 bucks, especially between hunting season and Christmas. (lotsa guys dump their rifles for gift money figgerin they can guilt their wife into a new rifle by next season!?!). At least around here. I check in every couple of weeks looking for donors. You are going to replace basically everything but the action anyhow, so there is no point paying for a 98 percent rifle as long as the action is sound. I don't think I have paid more than $350 for a 700 in a decade. If you are into cars, it is kinda like buying a "rebuildable core" for a 350 small block chevy. However, having the action trued by a top-notch gunsmith is not cheap. I have found several short action 700s that only had one one lug in contact from the factory, and often the action tube itself is not straight to begin with. So if you lack the tools or know-how to true it properly yourself, it may be less hassle to just buy the custom action.

Tom
 
Well, I ordered a factory made rifle thinking it would be a good one to modify, do my tweak and learn from it. But now at 5months waiting for the thing to arrive, and having had the chance to look a various custom actions in person thanks to an excellent local dealer(hirsch precision). I've gotta say I'd have started playing 5months ago with top quality stuff instead of putting 1250 on something that I still ain't sure when I'll get and that I'll be taking apart anyhow, and not knowing if I'll even get a decent one or just some pushed out the door panic. fingers crossed either way, sorta.

so yeah, custom actions all the way if you want to play serious. You can never tweak a factory thing to fit like these do.
 
The custom actions will carry a higher resale value to boot.

Exactly right. You can put lipstick on a pig, but you still have a pig. Now, if you have a Remington and do the work yourself, it can make a very accurate rifle. But personally, I wouldn't pay to have all the bells and whistles done on a Remington.
 
I have to chuckle when this argument comes up because in the time you spend trying to a improve a Remington action (most people make them worse) You can buy a 3 foot piece of pre heat treated 4140 or 4350 for $100 bux, a 20 ton press from Harbor Freight for $200 and a 7/16th x 1/2 inch radius broach and make the body from scratch. Its exactly the same as truing one up, you just remove a bit more material. The most complicated part is cutting the extraction and closing cams (closing cams are minimal on bench guns) and you can cut those with a file if the mill frightens you. Then call PTG and Jewel and you're done. What you have when you are done isnt just another screwed up Remington either and its a solid bottom action to boot.
 
while i applaud anyone who scratch builds a receiver, i have to chuckle if you think you can scratch build a 700 clone as cheaply or as quickly as purchasing a donor action and truing it up correctly.

for me and the type of shooting i do, i'll stick with a $400 donor 700 and put an hour into it single point squaring the lug abutments, threads and receiver face in relation to the bore centerline and a couple hundred bucks into a one piece ptg bolt/firing pin assembly. that'll do everything i need it to do and do it reliably. if i were trying to compete in benchrest, then i'd be looking for a more rigid action with a tighter fit and more bedding surface.
 
Making actions is something I've kinda been wanting to do, but after looking a bit more into the various parts, the nice wire EDM job they do to cut the grooves, all the parts to make the bolt assembly, Heat threat, whatever nutty liability insurance premium to amortize into each, and then throw in room for dealer mark up. The $1000 barnard or who else action is pretty low cost all things considered. Actually the more I look into make gun related stuff, the more I realize there's very little margins left to be made on most components unless you're got the machines and market to make/sell by the thousands of units, so many people doing it.
 
while i applaud anyone who scratch builds a receiver, i have to chuckle if you think you can scratch build a 700 clone as cheaply or as quickly as purchasing a donor action and truing it up correctly.

for me and the type of shooting i do, i'll stick with a $400 donor 700 and put an hour into it single point squaring the lug abutments, threads and receiver face in relation to the bore centerline and a couple hundred bucks into a one piece ptg bolt/firing pin assembly. that'll do everything i need it to do and do it reliably. if i were trying to compete in benchrest, then i'd be looking for a more rigid action with a tighter fit and more bedding surface.

I would have to counter chuckle that once you have the lathe, press, broach, bore reamer and basic drills it is CHEAPER to scratch make the body. You don't need a donor body to bastardize. The machine setups for reaming and threading are the same. A chimp can make a broach guide and drive a broach. They get first year apprentices to do broaching in machine shops because its so stupid no one else is dumb enough to do it. Drilling, boring and reaming the body hole is chimp work and locating the 4 scope mounting screws, action screws and trigger pin holes is first year machine shop work. Cutting an internal thread is probably the most involved and expensive part.

The idea scares you because you're trying to do it in your head all at once. Think about how you would do each step and then do them one at a time. Chucking it in a 4 jaw and drilling, boring and reaming will take 1 hour at most. Counter boring and threading an hour. Broaching 1 hour and so on. If you cant make 2 in an eight hour day once you have dimensions and setup you're no much of a machinist. Its not magic its just simple machining and you work from pre hardened material to leave out the tricky heat treating step. They only have to be 32-34 Rc and that's machinable. I made a couple 22 RF Mausers and Witchita clones which I broached in the lathe years back. The first one takes time and after that its down hill.

ADD NOTE: The most difficult part. Designing the action has been done for you and you have a pattern to follow. A piece of paper, locating pins and a caliper and vernier and you have the mechanical drawing. If you have a digital readout on your mill and one of those $15.00 electronic edge finders and a standard center finder you can use the mill to map out all of your external dimensions and pin hole locations.
 
Interesting while diverging from the original question of custom vrs tuned rem 700 receiver, the scratch built route is appealing.
Useful information for future reference one of those things you do just because you want to and can.
 
you are leaving out many ops for making the receiver. machining the tang area. machining the bolt handle notch. machining the ejection port. machining the feed ramp. machining the mag well. machining the trigger opening. machining the cocking piece groove. machining for the bolt release (what ever style you choose). you aren't going to form the closing cam surfaces with any quality using a file.

and trust me, i am not scared to make things. it just doesn't make sense to make a 700 clone from scratch if you value your time at all. if you enjoy making things. more power to you, have at it. just don't think you are going to be saving any time or money by making your own receiver vs. buying a $400 donor and truing it. especially after selling off the oem bolt, barrel and stock.
 
you are leaving out many ops for making the receiver. machining the tang area. machining the bolt handle notch. machining the ejection port. machining the feed ramp. machining the mag well. machining the trigger opening. machining the cocking piece groove. machining for the bolt release (what ever style you choose). you aren't going to form the closing cam surfaces with any quality using a file.

and trust me, i am not scared to make things. it just doesn't make sense to make a 700 clone from scratch if you value your time at all. if you enjoy making things. more power to you, have at it. just don't think you are going to be saving any time or money by making your own receiver vs. buying a $400 donor and truing it. especially after selling off the oem bolt, barrel and stock.

OK, so that's a day to make one. You make $400 a day? No wait cost is $400 for the donor action body and a half a days labor to true it that's $600. I think I want your job.

ADD NOTE:

Trigger port is a single slot mill cut 30 minutes to an hour.

Bench guns are solid bottom no mag well cut.

Combat Wombat guns are all clip fed so it is a simple rectangular hole with no feed lips. One hour.

Cocking and extraction cams do not have to be (precision). You can bullshit your friends, it won't work with me.

The rear tang I would have to think about for more than 20 minutes. I would say 2 hours to machine it.

There are lots of guys making complete custom actions (sans trigger) for around $1,100 or less and trust me when I say that a lot of the operations are done by hand and on old fashioned lathes and mills. The action fairies don't come in at night and sprinkle magic, pink and purple lill gun or ball C2 rifle powder on things to make them work either.
 
you can fully make a 700 clone from scratch in an 8 hour day but truing one up will take half a day?

dialing in the receiver bore in my fixture, opening the threads up to 1.083" using a single point tool, facing the lug abutments and receiver face shouldn't take more than about two hours including disassembling the rifle. probably about an hour if the receiver is already stripped, i've had my coffee and the shop is already opened up.
 
Well if you add another 1/2 hour to drill and ream the bolt body hole you're almost half way to a custom body. And you have only spent 2 1/2 hours and you're still on your first cup of coffee. I'd say you're ahead of my estimate. And you still haven't blown $400 on a donor action.
 
Actually now that I'm home and sitting on my brain. If I had access to a CNC mill, even one of the little toy HAAS or Tormachs I could write a simple program to cut the mag well, trigger port and tang screw holes and a separate one to cut the rear tang and the scope mount screw holes. I don't think it would take more than 2 or 3 hours for one of those little machines to finish it up after the bulk has been removed by drilling the bolt port and broaching the race ways. The beauty of it would be that I could sit there and have a couple beers while it worked. Of course I don't have a CNC.
 
i have a 4 axis tormach and i still wouldn't take the time to duplicate a remington 700 in a single unit. if i'm going to make something, it's going to be cool. not something i can pick up at any local gunshop for $400. if i were going to make some changes and do a production run, that's a totally different story.

serious question: how long would it take you to drill, ream and broach a 9-1/2" long piece of pre-hard 4140 that would allow a remington bolt to slide in?
 
You have a very low opinion of your work. I'm sure you could machine something VERY COOL. It is after all just working to dimensions. I'm sure you can set up and hit a size as good as the next fellow.

Serious answer:
The broaching can go 4 basic ways. If you use production broaches you can do each slot in one pass. If you are doing it with a hand crank hydraulic press you only get about 5 inches per shot and then you have to reset the jack and continue the stroke. I would guess about 2 minutes per 5 inches stroke to do the pumpy pumpy pump thing and reset. The broach is about 2 feet long so 25 minutes of fucking around per slot so an hour for both. If you have a long stroke motor driven hydraulic press probably 30 seconds per side plus 5 minutes to re-index the guide for the broach so say realistically 1/2 hour to set up and complete. The down side is that production broaches cost three or four times that of common broaches. Common broaches are about 10 inches long so you have to drive them through and then put a shim behind them and drive them through again until the slot is cut to depth. Probably an hour for both sides with the pump type jack as you are exchanging jack resets for shim additions, and say 3/4 hour for the motor driven hydraulic press because of adding shims. The times might not be exact, but they should be close enough to job cost. As far as drilling and reaming probably an hour or so to do a first class job but I would make a light pass or two with a heavy metal boring bar after drilling to double up the true then ream for size and finish. Drills like to wander.

I wasn't kidding when I said they make first year apprentices do the broaching work in machine shops. I have spent many a day with an oil can in my hands watching that infernal ram on the press go up and down. Its actually twice as bad as being stuck on a shaper. At least you can read a book if you are turning or running a CNC. Machinists are some of the most well read people on the planet.

If I did make custom actions I would make almost exact clones of the Remington and make them to except standard Remington bolts and triggers so people could get parts after I croak with no problems. I would use PTG bolts if I built action bodies. I can't build them any better or cheaper than they can, but I would still make sure they would still except Remington OEM parts. I have no desire to make something new. New has been done to death and in 50 years all those new actions will be novelty's with no spare parts. If I did do something, I would make done and make done as accurate as done can be done.
 
There are shops with EDM and deep hole capabilities that will drill the bolt hole in a piece of 4140, then EDM the bolt raceways and sell you a tube of 4140 with a funny hole all the way through it for a surprisingly low dollar amount. I know of one large custom gun builder who gets their actions started this way, and they're paying only about $100 per. I don't know what their batch quantities are, but I'd guess they're in the range of 50 to 100 per batch of action blanks.

They then CNC the magazine port on the bottom, the ejection port on the side, the various features such as the cam surface for the bolt and lugs, trigger attachment points, single point the threads for the barrel, etc. That takes them all of about two hours on a couple of CNC setups in 3 or 4 axis machine.

The Remington 700 was designed to be easily manufactured. It's just a damn tube of alloy steel. Making one isn't all that impressive to experienced machinists. Making an exact replica of a Mauser 98 action... now that's pretty impressive. A Rem700? That's rather trivial, actually.
 








 
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