Well, unfortunately I have done this test. I have written about it in several other post on here. I bought a 700 BDL in 22-250 at the Fort Worth Gun Show. Sold the stock and barrel on Ebay. Bought a #4 10 twist 308 Benchmark barrel. Had my smith chamber it in 308 Win. Had a Calvin Elite 8 oz trigger and a Night Force BR scope on it for load testing. Put in in a HS unbedded stock. Loaded Varget, H4895, IMR4064 and some other powders, primers, and dont know how many bullets and differant seating depts. The smith didn't lap the lugs because of what he called "cam over" when the bolt gets open. He did true the threads and the action face. I had him put a PTG recoil lug also. It was a turd. 1.5" 3 shot if you were lucky. Then my McMillian BDL stock came in and had the smith had bedded it. Still a turd. Sent the rifle to Benchmark they said it wasn't the barrel. Smith said it was. I had him order the barrel this time. A #5 Kreiger, and it shot the same. Took it back to him he started getting pissed, but he wouldn't shoot it. Thats when I started getting pissed. He sent it to Kreiger, they sent a new barrel blank. And guess what, still a turd. I was getting sick to my stomach by this point. I was pissed at the smith, at Remington, and the 308. So, I thought about making it someone else's problem, but figured I had to much in it to take that big of a hit and didn't really feel right about doing that to someone who would buy a custom rifle. So, I went over to Alamo Precision and had a talk with the owner and one of the smiths. I found a 7mm 9 twist 5.5 Krieger from Bruno's. Took it over to Alamo. This time, the action was trued. The bolt lugs, action lugs (I guess that's what you call it), bolt face, face of the action and they recut the threads then added a .25" Holland and holland recoil lug. The smith told me that it was as true as he could get it and if it didnt shoot he didn't know what to tell me. I took it to the range and it is 1/2" or better more times than not (if the nut behind the bolt does his job) and a bad group is 3/4". And that's with a 2# trigger and a 10 power scope. Not just with one load either. So I had 3 barrels that I truely believe were machined correctly and as good as can be, and the rifle would average about 1.5 MOA on a good day. The action got trued and the rifle went from a SOB to a shooting SOB. It sucks I went thru that though. I wouldn't advise it. I lost a lot of sleep over that deal. It wasn't fun testing the "to true a remmy action or not test" for me. But, I do believe that if a 700 action is not trued you are rolling the dice. And I have come to that conclusion from first hand experience. I have some that do shoot and are not trued like the one Alamo did this one. When I went back to Alamo to ask about how bad the action was off, the smith that did the work was on vacation and I dought he would remember now. And like I said in the other post, I think the first smith was burned out and needed to retire. Which he did after that. He is well known and has built many fine rifles. A buddy of mine was talking to him and told him I had that rifle rebarreled and he said it really did bother him. But, he still should have shot the damn thing. Anyway, I think if your trying to get all out of a 700 you can, it needs to be trued. And I still have lots of before and after targets. I saved almost all of them. It would have killed deer, but I expect it to be better that minute of deer for that kind of money.
