Is there a tool to square-up a receiver face?

B

BumbleBug

New member
I've seen a number of specialized tools for "blue-printing" Rem 700 actions based on a centering mandrel. All operations can be done with hand tools except squaring the receiver face, which requires a lathe. Is there a tool that allows the receiver face to be lapped/trimmed square by hand?

TIA...

...bug
 
Dave Manson makes one for bolt faces for 16 TPI receivers (bottom of catalog page 15). Note that the barrel has to be removed from the gun to use these. I don't know if he makes a receiver face truing tool or not.
 
Here is an excellent video on the topic.

That still does not mean it is cost effective.
I have shot 0.2 moa screwing a 6mmBR bull barrel onto a 100 year old take down Sav 99 that is not square, concentric, nor stiff.
A Rem700 is already fairly square, concentric, and stiff, so what is the most gain you can get from truing the action?
You are buying high speed muffler bearings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35c6BqxpYSs
 
Thanks everyone for the good responses.

Clark, that's the YouTube video that got me thinking about this. Midway sells all the tooling for Remington blue printing for about $1,000. Everything is using hand tools except for truing the action face which Potterfield chucks in a lathe. I was just wondering why there weren't any specialized tools for this step. As I have now found out, there are.
 
You could spend 100 hours and $1,000 on a trued action.
You could spend 100 hours and $1,000 shooting.

In the end, which will give you better groups at long range?
 
You're correct, Clark. Really, blueprinting an action is really to make things more mechanically sound, than for accuracy. Squaring the receiver face is about the only thing that does affect accuracy, in that it can affect the barrel's sighting by it being canted off center slightly. The rest, though, is really overkill to me. If the barrel is slightly canted, but it is bedded right, with the barrel floated, and the sights or scope can be adjusted correctly, then there may not be any need to do anything else.
 
Your Remington 700 is already about as plumb and perpendicular as they can make it. You're going to be dealing with ten thousandths or less. Not worth the effort or expense.

The iron sight dovetailings could be perhaps the same amount right there. Stock inletting is certainly fifty thousandths tolerance, or more. Torqueing the bolts is another tolerance set, and you can change that just by switching out tools and never know it. Taken as a whole, there are lots of tolerance sets that contribute to the base accuracy of the finished rifle.

All this is presuming, of course, that your ammunition is made to even tighter tolerances than your rifle and you can hold, aim, breathe, and squeeze without variation each and every shot in identical conditions of light, humidity, density, and wind speed and direction. Even if so, the moisture content of the stock wood changes over time and you'll be right back where you started.

Don't delude yourself into spending lots of time and expense chasing ten thousandths from one set of tolerances to the next.

The sights are adjustable for a reason.

You can't shoot any better than the factory tolerances, anyway.
 
Blueprinting is always hotly debated...in any case, potential benefits would most certainly be based on how square/true the action is that is being considered is to start...

In any case, call me dubious, that you can get everything from receiver threads to locking lugs and raceways to receiver face within a ten-thousandth with hand tooling.

I'd like to see a "hand-trued" receiver, indicated in a receiver fixture in a lathe to be able to really see the results of the work.
 
tobnpr said:
...I'd like to see a "hand-trued" receiver, indicated in a receiver fixture in a lathe to be able to really see the results of the work.
Click to expand...
That would be an interesting experiment & I too would like to see the results.

I know blueprinting actions is a very debatable subject except where bench guns are concerned. Now a days, it does not pay to true-up a run of the mill action when you can buy a precision custom action for the same cost if you include gunsmith charges.

But the logic goes like this. I take my trusty old Remington 700 to the gunsmith for a new barrel & build my dream shooter. It cost $300 to chamber & fit my new $300 Shilen barrel. While I may not want to pay for 6 hrs of shop time to do a dead true, all on lathe, action job perhaps a 1 hr tune up with specialized hand tools is definitely worth adding to the investment. Can't hurt.

Just thinking out load...

...bug
 
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