Bolt sleeving

[Alex Wheeler]

I could see how that would make sense. But my experiance is that tight cases dont shoot as well. Obviously there more than one thing at play.

 

[BoydAllen]

I have also heard that.

A friend had been given a Remington Short action that had an unusually loose bolt. He built a rifle around it that had accuracy consistency problems that he chased and theorized about endlessly, until I gave him good information on how to sleeve a bolt, which he did, and the problem was solved.

Another case that I heard about from John Illum, who used to produce Ram Pro actions, was about a customer of his who kept bothering him about working on a Remington rifle that had mediocre accuracy. Being an innovator, John put a couple of ball head set screws into the rear bridge. pointing down to the center of the action from either side, at about 45 degrees from vertical. He adjusted them to minimize bolt movement and in his words, after that it shot like a 40X. Personally, I believe that within a certain range bolt clearance has minimal effect, and beyond that it becomes an increasing factor.