Free floated barrel

[Bart B.]

I've never urged anyone to get a receiver raceway reamer. Show me where you think I did.
The bolt will have more slop in its fit.

I suggested a receiver facing tool.

 

[stagpanther]

I've never urged anyone to get a receiver raceway reamer. Show me where you think I did.
The bolt will have more slop in its fit.

I suggested a receiver facing tool.

Just teasing about the urging ; ) An action blueprint tool--unless I'm mistaken, which is entirely possible since I've never used one before--Trues the threads in the receiver as well as the receiver lugs and also the receiver face. As far as I can figure out, the cutter rides on a pilot which goes into the receiver and is retained/aligned by bushings in the raceway. I never said anything about reaming the raceway.

 

[Scorch]

I have just ordered a receiver blueprint reamer and a set of raceway bushings.

Now every rifle you build will get trued before you put it together. Remember to get extractors for Remingtons as you have to remove the factory extractor to true the bolt face.

 

[stagpanther]

Now every rifle you build will get trued before you put it together. Remember to get extractors for Remingtons as you have to remove the factory extractor to true the bolt face.

I'm starting off "learner" grade (hopefully easy and won't be too upset if I mess it up) with savage receivers. Since they have floating bolt heads I decided I could forgo the raceway truing for now--since that apparently would require a good metal lathe (which God forbid I one day decide to get, I've already started spending lots of drool time on Grizzly's website). I may still get ptg components for the bolt but that ups the cost quite a bit. For the record--I detest savage's micro-extractor that sits on the spring-loaded bb bearing--can't tell you how many of those tiny suckers I've lost fumbling with.

 

[recoil junky]

If my hunting rifle(s) won't shoot less than 1 moa, I find out why. Floating, bedding, more load work-up, fire lapping, crown polishing etc. may be done before I get the results I'm after.

RJ

 

[T. O'Heir]

A floated barrel guarantees nothing one way or the other. Some rifles like it. Some do not. And it's about that particular rifle. The only way to find out if your rifle likes it is to try it. Putting a pressure point back in isn't difficult. Takes a dab of bedding material about 2" aft of the end of the forestock. Easier to do than describe.
In any case, before you do anything with a new rifle, you should shoot it using good factory ammo. Reloading comes later. You need a 'base' to work from. Keeping in mind that a hunting rifle does not need to be MOA accurate. 'Consistent' is far more important.
"...crown polishing..." Does nothing.

 

[recoil junky]

Crown lapping then to be more precise.

99% of my rifles have never seen a factory round and the one that did was because I didn't have dies yet. Having a 45-70 and no ammo? C'mon, what would you have done?

RJ

 

[stagpanther]

That guarantee is also used across several rifles of different makes and models.

Why can't they shoot inside one MOA for 5, 10 or 20 consecutive shots 30 seconds apart?

What's different after 3 shots that makes the barrel change its line of fire direction relative to the line of sight as the bullet leaves the muzzle?

Sounds like a good test--so I took my stock Weatherby 300 wby mag vanguard out today and shot a load which had previously printed .6 MOA in a 3 shot group with shots timed several minutes apart. This time I shot ten shots more or less as fast as reasonably possible, I would guess it was around 30 to 45 seconds between shots.

It was barely twenty degrees and I was shooting off the icy hood of my truck--but I think I was actually shooting well, I don't recall calling an obvious pulled shot. It was pretty interesting watching the "migration habits" of the successive shots. Distance was 186 yds. Except for shots 3 and 4, the group measures around 1.5 MOA--all 10 shots group just a hair over 2 MOA.

 

[Nathan]

There is some talk in here about truing jigs....

I would be very anxious about any truing method that doesn’t require a lathe. It is simple to imaging the precision of zero’ing and action in a jig and recutting it true with rigid lathe tooling, dial indicators, etc.

When I see those piloted action facing jigs, thread taps, etc, I see a not consistent datum scheme hooked up to a loose pilot and harbor freight drill. Everything may be recut, but heck a stock Win 70 or Rem 700 isn’t that bad untrued.

 

[Bart B.]

There is some talk in here about truing jigs....

I would be very anxious about any truing method that doesn’t require a lathe. It is simple to imaging the precision of zero’ing and action in a jig and recutting it true with rigid lathe tooling, dial indicators, etc.

When I see those piloted action facing jigs, thread taps, etc, I see a not consistent datum scheme hooked up to a loose pilot and harbor freight drill. Everything may be recut, but heck a stock Win 70 or Rem 700 isn’t that bad untrued.

Use shim washers to make the barrel clock in to original headspace.

 

[Bart B.]

Sounds like a good test--so I took my stock Weatherby 300 wby mag vanguard out today and shot a load which had previously printed .6 MOA in a 3 shot group with shots timed several minutes apart. This time I shot ten shots more or less as fast as reasonably possible, I would guess it was around 30 to 45 seconds between shots.

It was barely twenty degrees and I was shooting off the icy hood of my truck--but I think I was actually shooting well, I don't recall calling an obvious pulled shot. It was pretty interesting watching the "migration habits" of the successive shots. Distance was 186 yds. Except for shots 3 and 4, the group measures around 1.5 MOA--all 10 shots group just a hair over 2 MOA.

Looks to me like you didn't hold the rifle the same way for each shot. Typical in the methods of laying across vehicle hoods; they're not too repeatable.