Or do most shooters just buy a top-shelf receiver like a BAT, Defiance, ARC etc, that comes blueprinted already?
I'm just getting a feeler because I am thinking of taking Gordy Gritter's blueprinting class ($1,600) and buying the tools and jigs (another $1,200) so I can offer blueprinting services.
I'm probably going to buy a Rem-700 receiver soon to blueprint it and do a full build for myself. I'd just hate to invest all that cash for services that aren't in demand.
Thanks for your opinions.
Tony.
What a loaded question. Do you have a lot of extra money on hand that you will not miss? Does price versus performance matter? Do you mind unsecured debt aka credit debt? Are you a super consumer that actual believes stupid nonfactual marketing like the idea of "You get what you pay for?" which did not exist as an idea prior to post WWII marketing/advertising?
Yes plenty of people purchase factory mass produced actions and get them blue printed depending on the what you intend to use the action for. Your custom action makers in their wildest dreams could not supply all of the action needed at the competition level int he USA let alone globally!
No one that sells custom actions especially to PRS, F, Silhouette, NRA High Power etc....Can or will actually tell you specifically what levels of concentricity, runout, clearances, tolerance stacking you get or do not get for the money. None of them give you any guarantee's of any kind on the machine work or accuracy of the product. They do not give you lock times or anything like that. They do not use high end materials not used by OEM mass produced actions over all. A lot of them are using cheap built up bolts from sub assemblies and are using floating bolt heads like a Savage or Thompson. A lot of them do not give you a trigger included, bottom metal, magazines in the base price.
If I am going to spend 3X+ for a custom action I want to be able to check what I am getting against the print so I know I am getting everything I have paid for. I want a guarantee of performance! If I have to send it out to a machinist or gunsmith to check it out than I have already lost. If I have to have a custom action blueprinted and you will find people on all of these shooting sights that do just that than I have already lost. If my machinist / gunsmith has to do anything to it I have already lost!
Price means nothing to me if I can not measure it than it is not real! Rifle actions are not high fashion in spite of how girly most men in the shooting sports have gotten!
So I am not against custom actions I just think they are marketed like womens hand bags and shoes and that machines should be sold on things that can be measured especially if they are supposed to be more precise and accurate. I do not want marketing hype adjective and adverbs I want things that I can measure. Words are cheap!
I want to know what prefit barrel and what weight and brand ammo I need to assemble and use to get the guaranteed accuracy. It had better be at least a 1/8 MOA group to be worth the higher price point out of the box with out the need of a gunsmith. It should be plug and play buy these parts put together your self use this ammo and you will get this result. If you have to send your 3X+ expensive action to Gre-Tan or someone like him to assemble the parts at a high cost than what did you get for you money? Not much!
Instead you get bromance soft sells where a guy get's a Terminus action and just vomits praise for it with lots of words with out actual saying anything of value like a politician so lots of words and praise but nothing of meaning or value actual said. I want to thank my sponsors blah blah blah.....I could not have done it with out Terminus, Hornady Ammo, NightForce blah blah blah even though that guy was not running that gear when he first made it to nationals etc....but now he could not have done it with out them etc.....HE got those sponsors while running a blueprinted Savage and Sightron Scope and Brux barrel but now that he is getting free gear, discounted gear, and a some form of financial incentive he could not get to where he got without the new gear paying the bills!
It is disingenuous. We all want to get paid but lying to people once you have made it just to get paid is cheap and trashy.
None of these custom makers will put their products especially if purchased with out their knowledge up against a variety of factory actions that have been custom machined by SSS or Gre-Tan or similar high level gunsmiths/machinists. None of these gunsmiths would ever put out a spreadsheet of the numbers they have measured pre and post machining by brand out of fear of litigation.
So at the end of the day no one on this site or any sight can tell you anything other than observations with insanely small sample sizes and nothing that can be measured out of fear or because it would hurt their cash cow.
So if you want a custom action definitely get it but do not fool yourself or try to impress others with an action you know nothing of importance about outside of the financial cost. The only critical number you know is the price point. LOL
If you actual dig a little bit one of the cheapest action designs the Savage 110/10 action has produced a lot of wins and records outside of BR shooting. I will admit the Savage actions are a terrible design but the import parts are all there and they are easy to blueprint and produce fantastic results with just decent machine work. SSS has plenty of people racking up wins at high levels with Savage actions. The US Army, FBI, Secret Service and the Marine Corp. have done some fantastic work with Remington 700's again not the best design or execution but after basic machine work and a match grade barrel pretty good!
So what ever you decide to do just make sure you do it because that is what you want and not because some idiot like me on the internet talked you into something with zero empirical and quantifiable repeatable evidence that can be measured. Question anyone and everyone and the more of your time, money, brain, heart or soul they want the more you should doubt them and the more you should demand of them!
Almost no one on the top of the food chain started out with the high end toys they are playing with today!
Nothing trumps practice which means ammo, components and a place to practices.
Nothing is more important than a mentor to teach you how to read the wind and how to do precision reloading. If you want to short cut the learning curve get a mentor that has already done what you want to do! So you do not have to learn from trial and error! Sadly since that can not be bought or sold it is the thing no one pushes on any of these sights!
-Al
