It seems some custom gun builders put a lot of importance on truing an action and won't rebarrel a rifle without it, others seem to think it's just a grab for more money and have built many rifles that shot well without touching the action. I have my thoughts but would be very interested in facts and supporting info from guys on both sides with a deeper well of experience than mine.
Action truing, fact or fiction?
- Thread starter bigngreen
- Start date
Minesweeper3433
45B/91F
I would rather have an action straight and perpendicular to the access of center-line. Why because it makes things predictable and that is all I ask out of any rifle.
If you have a factory rifle that shoots well, ask yourself; How consistent is it? Trueing, done correctly, will ensure your rifle shoots well always if you do your part. It kinda goes unspoken, but you also need a good barrel. Beware the smith that does not do a complete job. There are a few out there that simple make a cut on the face of the receiver and call it good enough.
Here is a comparison most people would understand:
You drive your car 30,000 miles and your tires have toe end wear and have to be replaced. Do you get a front end alignment before you drive off on your new $800.00 tires.
I can not speak for other gunsmiths but I don't replace $39.00-$89.00 factory barrels with OEM barrels. I use custom made premium barrels that are either cut rifled or button rifled that are triple stress relieved and hand lapped. These barrels cost more and can deliver superior accuracy.
When I machine a barrel it is dialed in on both ends +/- .0001". The tenon is turned, threaded, chambered and headspaced off the same set-up insuring a concentric and co-axial barrel fit and chamber.
I have seen factory rifles where the barrel and action were .040" out of concentric and co-axial alignment. One of these rifles came out of the manufactures (big and green) custom shop.
There are many grades of gunsmith out there, some charge more some charge less, some use tooling and methods others have never heard of.
Speaking only for myself, I charge what I consider a fair rate for chambering a barrel and truing an action. Considering the cost of doing business, ie: machine time, tooling, license, insurance, electricity, education and experience. My customers expect the best that I can provide. They are willing to pay the price for quality parts and service.
I currently am not taking in any more new work because enough people had enough faith and patients to send me their work. I know of no reputable gunsmith not having a back log of work currently.
When I have a caller call and ask about work and want to argue over price, (saying so and so does it for less) a bell goes off in my head. I think that I can examine an action and evaluate it's trueness as good as some of the best. I have seen a few factory actions that were as true as it gets. Let me say that is the exception not the rule.
As one can tell this posters thread has gotten under my skin. It is obvious that the original poster has to much time on their hand and not enough experience dealing with quality gunsmiths.
Most quality gunsmiths have a lot of years experience and have a general knowledge of what the customer wants and needs. I don't know any quality gunsmiths who intentionally try to gouge their customers. The shooting community is a small world and if you in it very long you will know the stand outs both good and bad.
I have finished my coffee now and move on.
Nat Lambeth
You drive your car 30,000 miles and your tires have toe end wear and have to be replaced. Do you get a front end alignment before you drive off on your new $800.00 tires.
I can not speak for other gunsmiths but I don't replace $39.00-$89.00 factory barrels with OEM barrels. I use custom made premium barrels that are either cut rifled or button rifled that are triple stress relieved and hand lapped. These barrels cost more and can deliver superior accuracy.
When I machine a barrel it is dialed in on both ends +/- .0001". The tenon is turned, threaded, chambered and headspaced off the same set-up insuring a concentric and co-axial barrel fit and chamber.
I have seen factory rifles where the barrel and action were .040" out of concentric and co-axial alignment. One of these rifles came out of the manufactures (big and green) custom shop.
There are many grades of gunsmith out there, some charge more some charge less, some use tooling and methods others have never heard of.
Speaking only for myself, I charge what I consider a fair rate for chambering a barrel and truing an action. Considering the cost of doing business, ie: machine time, tooling, license, insurance, electricity, education and experience. My customers expect the best that I can provide. They are willing to pay the price for quality parts and service.
I currently am not taking in any more new work because enough people had enough faith and patients to send me their work. I know of no reputable gunsmith not having a back log of work currently.
When I have a caller call and ask about work and want to argue over price, (saying so and so does it for less) a bell goes off in my head. I think that I can examine an action and evaluate it's trueness as good as some of the best. I have seen a few factory actions that were as true as it gets. Let me say that is the exception not the rule.
As one can tell this posters thread has gotten under my skin. It is obvious that the original poster has to much time on their hand and not enough experience dealing with quality gunsmiths.
Most quality gunsmiths have a lot of years experience and have a general knowledge of what the customer wants and needs. I don't know any quality gunsmiths who intentionally try to gouge their customers. The shooting community is a small world and if you in it very long you will know the stand outs both good and bad.
I have finished my coffee now and move on.
Nat Lambeth
Erik Cortina
Team Lapua Brux Borden Captain
I believe the barrel is the most important factor in accuracy. A good barrel will shoot really good in a factory action. But would that same barrel shoot better in a trued action? I do everything I can to ensure every barrel performs to its full potential.
I think it depends on what your use of the rifle is. If it is a hunting rifle and you are rebarreling it, perhaps squaring the face of the action is sufficient. But if it is a precision/long distance rifle, then I believe you need to do everything to get the maximum return. My preference is to use a custom action for my long range rifles. The fit, finish, and precision of a custom action is significant and leads to a highly accurate rifle.
As an analogy, if you are a pistol shooter using a pistol with slightly misaligned sights. Your shots at 3 1/2 yards may be centered on the target and tightly grouped. But as you move further away, the group opens up and the center of the group is further from the center of the target. A misaligned rifle acts the same. The distance just has to be greater to show the problems.
Cort
As an analogy, if you are a pistol shooter using a pistol with slightly misaligned sights. Your shots at 3 1/2 yards may be centered on the target and tightly grouped. But as you move further away, the group opens up and the center of the group is further from the center of the target. A misaligned rifle acts the same. The distance just has to be greater to show the problems.
Cort
Rustystud said:
Nat, I'm not trying to get under anyone's skin and yes, I lack experience which is why I ask the question from more experienced people. I'm just starting down the road of precision rifle building, forming my opinions and methods, you have helped me form many of the methods I currently employ from reading your methods and supporting information.
Personally I have seen two instances even in just a short time where the action affected accuracy, one was a factory rifle that shot very well at 1000 yards for what it was and would hold 5-6 inches AFTER the first round, the cold bore round was 1.5 MOA up and left every time. Through reading on here I build a truing jig and got the tools to qualify an action, all I did was simply face the action and put a ground lug on and that rifle started putting the cold bore round in the group.
My second experience was a few years ago after I started chambering my own barrels, I was still scared stiff to pick up the internal threads of an action and touch the integral lugs so I just didn't touch the action at all and I put a nice Brux barrel on it, I spent all my energy on the barrel and felt I had a master piece. It shot like a bag of poo, at that point I figured I had a short but OK run and should not continue but I finally started looking at every thing and the barrel was dead nuts on, I could not measure anything that was wrong.
I was taking the action of for the umtenth time and I noticed that it looked like the lug was getting more contact on one side than the other, I finally nutted up and put the action in the jig and dialed it in and finished the job correctly. It was a different rifle, consistent and very nice vertical, and it's proven to be a very solid shooting rifle beyond a mile.
Those are my two measurable cases of the action screwing with what should be a good barrel and chambering job which has led me to putting every factory action in my jig and qualifying it and correcting it.
I simply started this thread because I KNOW I lack experience and I have zero desire to do anything less than top quality work and want input from those with numbers and rock solid experience to check myself against and not be swayed by boloney or someone who also lacks experience!!
bigngreen,
In retrospect of some of the answers that you have gotten here, your question, regardless of how far beneath some to answer without sliding in a sideways jab, is in fact a valid one.
In many cases, truing a factory action is certainly beneficial, and in many cases, it is certainly not. A gunsmith who's only goal is to write invoices will always tell you that it's a necessity in every scenario. A smith with the proper measuring tools will be able to tell you on the spot if it is a necessity or a waste of time for your particular action.
I think that everyone will agree that when checking an action, the most important thing is the squareness of the action face in relation to the bolt raceway, as well as all of the other rotating parts with regard to squareness. Chasing the threads is also a nice feature if they are out of whack or if there is excessive taper, if any at all.
I laugh every time I hear someone make the claim of dialing in to .0001" with the expectation of that spot runout remaining constant. Things such as tool and work deflection and machine alignment (spindle bore to bedways) will always make that number invalid on just about any machine that has a purchase price of less than about $150K. It's just the way it is.
PS; ask all the question that you would like. That's what forums are for, to trade useful information, rather than to try to insult people that know slightly less than them....for the time being. I will also emphatically say that I think it's pretty shameful for anyone who claims to be in the business of helping folks out with gunsmithing operations while that have a pretty common history of slinging insults in the hopes of making themselves feel better. Just shameful...
JS
In retrospect of some of the answers that you have gotten here, your question, regardless of how far beneath some to answer without sliding in a sideways jab, is in fact a valid one.
In many cases, truing a factory action is certainly beneficial, and in many cases, it is certainly not. A gunsmith who's only goal is to write invoices will always tell you that it's a necessity in every scenario. A smith with the proper measuring tools will be able to tell you on the spot if it is a necessity or a waste of time for your particular action.
I think that everyone will agree that when checking an action, the most important thing is the squareness of the action face in relation to the bolt raceway, as well as all of the other rotating parts with regard to squareness. Chasing the threads is also a nice feature if they are out of whack or if there is excessive taper, if any at all.
I laugh every time I hear someone make the claim of dialing in to .0001" with the expectation of that spot runout remaining constant. Things such as tool and work deflection and machine alignment (spindle bore to bedways) will always make that number invalid on just about any machine that has a purchase price of less than about $150K. It's just the way it is.
PS; ask all the question that you would like. That's what forums are for, to trade useful information, rather than to try to insult people that know slightly less than them....for the time being. I will also emphatically say that I think it's pretty shameful for anyone who claims to be in the business of helping folks out with gunsmithing operations while that have a pretty common history of slinging insults in the hopes of making themselves feel better. Just shameful...
JS
Big and Green:
I feel like your last post answered your first post.
As for getting precision work done, if your gunsmith does not have and use tenths indicators (yes ten thousands, 1/10,000) then he is not giving you precision rifle work.
I don't know of any precision gunsmiths who don't own and use tenths indicators in their final set up.
Nat Lambeth
I feel like your last post answered your first post.
As for getting precision work done, if your gunsmith does not have and use tenths indicators (yes ten thousands, 1/10,000) then he is not giving you precision rifle work.
I don't know of any precision gunsmiths who don't own and use tenths indicators in their final set up.
Nat Lambeth
Raythemanroe
Bullet Whisperer
;D Couldn't one just use a floating bolt head and a barrel nut? ;D
Erik Cortina
Team Lapua Brux Borden Captain
raythemanroe said:
LMAO! ;D
That's fancy stuff right there.Erik Cortina
Team Lapua Brux Borden Captain
jscandale said:
Sounds like a good excuse to not dial a barrel in as close to .0000" as possible.
Erik Cortina
Team Lapua Brux Borden Captain
jscandale said:
But do you dial to .0001"?
Erik Cortina
Team Lapua Brux Borden Captain
jscandale said:
I guess that means you don't dial to .0001", which goes back to my comment on reply #14
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