Barrel TQ and Headspace Crush Measurements

[Edd]

Don't take this wrong, but I've never heard of the guy. Who does he build for?

I believe his primary market is law enforcement agencies. He will also build for individuals.

 

[jackieschmidt]

Don't take this wrong, but I've never heard of the guy. Who does he build for?

Tactical.

 

[Judd]

Government buying a 7k dollar Rem 700…say it ain’t so

 

[wkdickinson]

I don't think, in fact I know stretch isn't the correct word. At one time I worked in the metal building business. It takes a 3/4" drive torque wrench on the structural bolts. That's a lot of torque. If they were torqued to 80 ft/lbs the steel frame would soon be rocking and swaying like a dried out rocking chair.
Let's say you have two gage blocks and you ring them together, meaning there is no air between them. You can have confidence that the overall measurement of the combined blocks is accurate. That's the way they work. The junction between the barrel and action is similar unless influenced by other forces. With a good finish when they come together, they are together and HS won't change. Rotational change is influenced by other factors.

I spent much of my career in the heavy equipment business, but not as a mechanic. Caterpillar for a long time has used a technique called the "torque-turn" method for tightening fasteners in critical assemblies. Basically, the fastener is torqued to a specific amount and then the bolt/nut is rotated another prescribed amount (ie., torque to 400 lbft then turned another 90 deg.), a specific bolt "stretch" being the goal. Again, according to Caterpillar, in a threaded joint if I recall correctly the 1st thread on the bolt holds 80% of the clamping force, the 2nd holds 15%, the 3rd holds 5%, (those %s may not be exact, but they are close) the rest of threads in the joint have no tension on them. So yes, I believe "stretch" is definitely a factor in a threaded joint.

 

[Tokay444]

Don't take this wrong, but I've never heard of the guy. Who does he build for?

Every alphabet agency under the sun.

 

[Tokay444]

Ive never heard of him either and there aint many circles im not involved in especially rifles that shoot zeroes and ones.
what im more interested in is how a tighter barrel shoots cold bore shots better and howcome these guns are not in the match reports with the guns that do shoot in the zeroes and ones?

He builds the rifles to shoot 168gr federal gold medal match factory ammo, in the 0s and 1s.
You guys do have your own little microcosm here though.

 

[jackieschmidt]

He builds the rifles to shoot 168gr federal gold medal match factory ammo, in the 0s and 1s.
You guys do have your own little microcosm here though.

O‘s and 0ne’s. With Federal Gold Medal Match. In a tactical sniper rifle.

I would pay good money to see that.

 

[Tokay444]

O‘s and 0ne’s. With Federal Gold Medal Match. In a tactical sniper rifle.

I would pay good money to see that.

$7000 and about a year to two wait, to be exact.

Tac Ops Rifles

Owners please post your gun porn here!

www.snipershide.com

 

[Tokay444]

Tactical Operations

 

[Tokay444]

These are not guns that are designed to agg over a 2 day match. But they reliably and routinely print 3 shot groups from cold bore in the 0s and 1s. They’re legit sniper rifles meant for a shooting people in the face, first try, every try, and that’s why every letter agency lines up and smiles and pays for them.

 

[mudduck]

True. The people buying them are.

Someone that is booked a year in advance selling a Model 700 action, with a Krieger barrel, and a Mcmillan stock for $7000 is not a moron.

 

[natdscott]

O‘s and 0ne’s. With Federal Gold Medal Match. In a tactical sniper rifle.

I would pay good money to see that.

Hey, give him a call and get on the wait list. Pay to play, and back up that attitude.

That, or just get okay with your knowledge being expanded. Happens all the time, if we’ll let it. This forum and it’s primary audience has been very good to a great many people in that regard, but it doesn’t cover everything.

Tac Ops is far from new, and despite the direction “tactical” shit and jargon have taken, was doing the tactical “thing” wayyy before it was cool, for professionals who don’t give a shit what we think.

Now Mike’s test targets—or any manufacturer’s—are one thing. The owners and third party verifications are another.

The rifles carry a 1/4 Minute guarantee with that ammo, and come with a free dildo in the box (or used to). Mike has a great sense of humor re: the CA and ATF crowd, from a time when they liked to harass those boxes.

Last I spoke with him, he was still a Real
Dude, and didn’t care much what the internet thought of his methods…

…being that, you know, he was constantly under a backlog of work from individuals and agencies that needed, or “needed” his product.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Once the face of the action and shoulder of the barrel come in contact the only way you hs is changing is if something is compressing. The shoulder of the chamber is in front of the shoulder of the tenon so any thread stretch that may be happening wont effect hs. Poor finishes, recoil lug thats not flat, action face not square with threads too tight, ext are reasons you would see hs change with torque.

 

[jackieschmidt]

These are not guns that are designed to agg over a 2 day match. But they reliably and routinely print 3 shot groups from cold bore in the 0s and 1s. They’re legit sniper rifles meant for a shooting people in the face, first try, every try, and that’s why every letter agency lines up and smiles and pays for them.

He builds the rifles to shoot 168gr federal gold medal match factory ammo, in the 0s and 1s.
You guys do have your own little microcosm here though.

We might have our “own little microcosm here”, but more than a few of us know what it takes to do that.

And we know how to prove it.

There used to be a Gunsmith in the Houston area that built high end rifles for those that could afford them. He also touted that his “Rifles Achieved Benchrest Accuracy“ in a hunting platform. I would watch him at the local Gun Range testing the next customers Rifles. They simply took his word that their money was indeed buying his claims.

Their ignorance kept him in business. If they ever took their Rifle to the range and found out the truth, he always had that…..”you didn’t do your part” thing to fall back on.

It is pretty common for people to throw extreme accuracy figures around when those people have no concept of what it actually takes to achieve such performance. In our “own little microcosm” we do know what it takes and have to actually prove it, on a regular basis.

Those that cater to the Tactical Sniper Rifle crowd, whether that crowd be individuals or government agency’s, can tout their rifle‘s ability to feed reliably, extract and eject empties efficiently, be ergonomically functional, or possess any of the other parameters that govern that particular genera. These attributes are often just as difficult to achieve as extreme accuracy and are probably more important than the rifles ability to achieve sub .200 accuracy, even in 3 shots.

It would be pretty silly for me to take one of my Benchrest Rifles to the field and duplicate the performance of a Platform designed for that application.

However, what that Platform will not do, with the ammunition advertised, achieve the level af accuracy and precision that it takes to “shoot 0’s and 0nes” out of a cold barrel.

And there is a very easy way to prove this. Actually sit down and do it.

I have a nice 30/06 that I built on a 721 action that is assembled with the finest parts. I performed all of the necessary machine work. It feeds reliably, extraction and ejection is flawless, and although a little heavy at 10 pounds with the big NXS Nightforce sitting on top, it is reasonably functional in the field with it’s HS Precision stock.

With my own tuned handloads, it will shoot 3-shot “threes” off the bench.

That is a far cry from “0’s and Ones”.

 

[dnellans]

I spent much of my career in the heavy equipment business, but not as a mechanic. Caterpillar for a long time has used a technique called the "torque-turn" method for tightening fasteners in critical assemblies. Basically, the fastener is torqued to a specific amount and then the bolt/nut is rotated another prescribed amount (ie., torque to 400 lbft then turned another 90 deg.), a specific bolt "stretch" being the goal. Again, according to Caterpillar, in a threaded joint if I recall correctly the 1st thread on the bolt holds 80% of the clamping force, the 2nd holds 15%, the 3rd holds 5%, (those %s may not be exact, but they are close) the rest of threads in the joint have no tension on them. So yes, I believe "stretch" is definitely a factor in a threaded joint.

To get back to the technical on this thread.

I have read this elsewhere as well but can’t remember where…. I doesn’t seem intuitive to me why the threads aren’t all making contact a marginally “the same time”. I presume “the first” thread is referring to the one closest to the shoulder?

 

[dnellans]

Once the face of the action and shoulder of the barrel come in contact the only way you hs is changing is if something is compressing. The shoulder of the chamber is in front of the shoulder of the tenon so any thread stretch that may be happening wont effect hs. Poor finishes, recoil lug thats not flat, action face not square with threads too tight, ext are reasons you would see hs change with torque.

Can we be a little more specific on “too tight” in this context? That’s a term that is often thrown around but hard to quantify.

Anything you can turn on and snap tight with your hand on the lathe so that you’re 100% sure the shoulder and recoil lug are in contact, versus the threads binding before you get to that point, is “loose enough”?

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Can we be a little more specific on “too tight” in this context? That’s a term that is often thrown around but hard to quantify.

Anything you can turn on and snap tight with your hand on the lathe so that you’re 100% sure the shoulder and recoil lug are in contact, versus the threads binding before you get to that point, is “loose enough”?

Too tight is when they are tight enough that they prevent the shoulders from mating up 100% without some torque. If the action threads and face were perfectly square you could fit a pretty tight thread, but they are not always square. Not even on customs. If you snap an action up by hand it should require a wrench to get it off if the faces are allowed to mate freely.

 

[DaveTooley]

I spent much of my career in the heavy equipment business, but not as a mechanic. Caterpillar for a long time has used a technique called the "torque-turn" method for tightening fasteners in critical assemblies. Basically, the fastener is torqued to a specific amount and then the bolt/nut is rotated another prescribed amount (ie., torque to 400 lbft then turned another 90 deg.), a specific bolt "stretch" being the goal. Again, according to Caterpillar, in a threaded joint if I recall correctly the 1st thread on the bolt holds 80% of the clamping force, the 2nd holds 15%, the 3rd holds 5%, (those %s may not be exact, but they are close) the rest of threads in the joint have no tension on them. So yes, I believe "stretch" is definitely a factor in a threaded joint.

1" bolt takes 250 ft/lbs
1 1/8" bolt takes 355 ft/lbs
split the difference and it takes about 300 ft/lbs for a 1 1/16" threaded connection for a properly torqued install.
At 80 ft/lbs. all we do is change the surface finish on the shoulders and threads.

 

[wwbrown]

I have a nice 30/06 that I built on a 721 action that is assembled with the finest parts. I performed all of the necessary machine work. It feeds reliably, extraction and ejection is flawless, and although a little heavy at 10 pounds with the big NXS Nightforce sitting on top, it is reasonably functional in the field with it’s HS Precision stock.

With my own tuned handloads, it will shoot 3-shot “threes” off the bench.

That is a far cry from “0’s and Ones”.

I guess that is the undeniable proof that you need to torque to 500 ft-lbs to get accuracy in the "0's" and "1's", because your machining is probably on par or superior to anyone else's so the only difference between your build on a TACOPS build is maybe 400+ ft-lbs. Jackie you have the largest equipment of anyone I have ever seen so get a bigger and wrench and torque that mother down to get "the best" accuracy.

Just so there is no misunderstanding, since sarcasm is hard to project in just text, I state the above with tongue in cheek and extreme skepticism whether 500 ft-lbs yields the stated accuracy levels.

On a sidebar, the average engagement range for LEO sniper engagements is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 yards, at least those were the numbers of about 8-10 years ago. With those engagement ranges the accuracy required to get head shots is acheived by most off-the-rack modern rifles. I find it interesting that a budget constrained operation can get $7,000 ponied up for "sniper" rifles given the ranges involved. I think they would be much better off spending more money on range time with more common rifles.

 

[butchlambert]

Hey, give him a call and get on the wait list. Pay to play, and back up that attitude.

That, or just get okay with your knowledge being expanded. Happens all the time, if we’ll let it. This forum and it’s primary audience has been very good to a great many people in that regard, but it doesn’t cover everything.

Tac Ops is far from new, and despite the direction “tactical” shit and jargon have taken, was doing the tactical “thing” wayyy before it was cool, for professionals who don’t give a shit what we think.

Now Mike’s test targets—or any manufacturer’s—are one thing. The owners and third party verifications are another.

The rifles carry a 1/4 Minute guarantee with that ammo, and come with a free dildo in the box (or used to). Mike has a great sense of humor re: the CA and ATF crowd, from a time when they liked to harass those boxes.

Last I spoke with him, he was still a Real
Dude, and didn’t care much what the internet thought of his methods…

…being that, you know, he was constantly under a backlog of work from individuals and agencies that needed, or “needed” his product.

Chuckle chuckle, I guess all "TAC" shooters move to the far side. Several of us have traveled around the turnip patch and know for a "fact" that nobody builds a 0 or .1 rifle that will shoot that with factory ammo. Get upset with me, but I and a lot of folks know better!
He may build a fine rifle, BUT!
OH! back on topic. I torque mine with a 24" wrench until it is tight.