Is every Rem 700 bent?

[LVLAaron]

Kind of hard to see in the photo, I'll explain. I've tuned up a couple of Rem 700's. The ones I've touched, never align properly with the rod/bushing. They're all out probably 20 thou.

This isn't something I figured I'd ever be doing because the effort typically isn't worth the cost. However, the CMP Vintage Sniper rules now allow for Vietnam era rifles, which includes Remington 700's - so I expect to see several, and am just curious if there is a run of 700's out there that typically ran truer than others.

 

[GenePoole]

Are you sure your rod isn't the problem? I got three from Manson that were centerless ground and ran out by 5 or 6 thousandths before I talked to one of their machinists and they sent me one ground on centers. I assume they saw the error of their ways, but who knows.

For what it's worth, I've not seen any "bent" R700s, but most of the one's I've done are RR and the QC has improved greatly.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

You just need a centerline. How straight the path is means nothing.

 

[WSnyder]

As said above (but differently ) you just stuff the biggest rod or rod and bushings you can in it and go off that. In many ways the bolt isn’t going to be perfect either so you get what you get. The RR’s seemed much better overall. Some were better than others depending on which facility they came out of. The RR’s rear sight bridges were really close if not near perfect rather than the typical low left rear corner of most of the previous actions.

 

[LVLAaron]

Are you sure your rod isn't the problem?

Fair question. With a Bat, Borden, etc etc etc the rod slides right into the bushings. So I assume the rod is "good"

You just need a centerline. How straight the path is means nothing.

Also fair. I insert the rod, and then work the bushings gingerly into their "home" so I don't bend the rod. In the photo, I did the opposite: I stuffed the inserts in and then the rod. to see the offset from front to rear.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Turn a full diameter rod. Throw the bushings away.

 

[WSnyder]

I insert the rod, and then work the bushings gingerly into their "home" so I don't bend the rod.

If all you have is the rod and bushings then you might have to use a smaller bushing or bushings with the rod than you would be able to get in the action without the rod.

 

[Jud96]

After going from using a rod and bushings to full diameter solid, turned, and ground rods I never would go back to bushings again.

 

[jackieschmidt]

You need to be careful when testing anything that your means of testing does not have built in error.

A center less ground rod is not he same as a rod ground, or even turned, between centers.

The 308 I built a while back was on a RR action, and was truer than any Remington I ever checked. I still trued it, just to be safe.

 

[D-mon]

I was setting up a Remington 7 receiver in a jig for truing work a month ago .
i could not believe that the outside of the receiver was so much of alignment. So I took the receiver out of the jig, the jig out of the lathe. I then set up the mandrel in receiver, and then set up the mandrel between centers.
on the horizontal plan, the front of the receiver was off by 0.05” and by about the same amount on the opposite side at the rear. The worst I have ever seen, in my small experience.
the bolt was actually reasonably true.
it was probably a rifle made on a Friday afternoon just before the summer holidays.

 

[LVLAaron]

Rods without bushings work if the action is decent... Not sure how they'd work when the front race is 2 thou bigger than the rear. You're gonna have a floppy rod somewhere in the mix. And nobody likes a floppy rod.

 

[DaveTooley]

Consider that the contact point on the action has to be uniform and perpendicular to the action bore to get the bushing aligned perfectly.
Back when we used 700's to build 1,000 yd. BR rifles I sleeved a lot of them. Had to turn the lumps off to get them into the sleeves. They were warped and twisted all over.

 

[LVLAaron]

They must work really hard to make sure they're all so bad.

Are the stainless/polished models any less bad?

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Rods without bushings work if the action is decent... Not sure how they'd work when the front race is 2 thou bigger than the rear. You're gonna have a floppy rod somewhere in the mix. And nobody likes a floppy rod.

It wont because they are not straight. You will have 3 points of contact. The bushing setup ignores the middle of the action. Draw it out, think it out. The bolt is full diameter.

 

[Judd]

I did one Remington rebarrel/true up on a 308 I picked up somewhere…juice ain’t worth the squeeze and said I’d never do another one. I recently picked up a 30-06 that some day I’ll make into a 280ai, so I guess I’ll do one more to confirm my initial impression

FWIW - I got in on the group buy here for a set of the Warner bars, they weren’t cheap but they are nice.

Good luck.

 

[Rat Rifle]

I did one Remington rebarrel/true up on a 308 I picked up somewhere…juice ain’t worth the squeeze and said I’d never do another one. I recently picked up a 30-06 that some day I’ll make into a 280ai, so I guess I’ll do one more to confirm my initial impression

FWIW - I got in on the group buy here for a set of the Warner bars, they weren’t cheap but they are nice.

Good luck.

And what would You charge a customer who insisted this would be the best course of action?

Asking for a friend

 

[Walt Krafft]

The RR and now the RAR actions are vastly improved. Chattanooga Shooting Supply has some actions in stock. Get a couple of new ones and check them out.

 

[WSnyder]

You're gonna have a floppy rod somewhere in the mix.

No, in practice when you put a mandrel in there it will be fairly tight with pretty much no movement. It’ll hit the high spots (wherever they happen to be) and will be snug.

 

[freebird22/250]

All of my Bent Model 700's shoot great as i must have gotten lucky!

 

[Dimner]

Rods without bushings work if the action is decent... Not sure how they'd work when the front race is 2 thou bigger than the rear. You're gonna have a floppy rod somewhere in the mix. And nobody likes a floppy rod.

They make meds for them floppy rods