trued action?

[grovey]

Is there any way for a novice to tell if a 700 action has been trued? I recently bought a few rifles as sort of a group pig in a poke deal. One of the rifles is a 700P in 308. It's obviously had work done to it, but I don't know how much. The bbl on the rifle has been spun so the Rem letting and caliber markings are now hidden under the stock line. The trigger has been swapped to a jewel. The bolt handle has been screwed to the body, and I believe tigged.

I had a tough time getting the rifle to chamber a case at first, and believe I've solved that problem by cleaning up part of a burr on the bolt head near the ejector. The chamber is BIG compared to my other 308. With fired case measuring over.483 ish above the web and .462 at the shoulder. The fired cases look kinda bulged to me. The loads were hot enough to flatten primers. I fired it about 10 times today, and it functions well. Sorry to be so long winded, but I wanted to layout everything I know, or don't know about the rifle.

 

[284winner]

Won't be able to tell on the front of the action if the barrel is mounted to the action. Pull the bolt and look in the chamber. If it was machined where the bolt face meets the chamber, you'll see shiny metal where It was milled. I'm no machinist or gunsmith but had a few trued and the front of the action was milled for squareness and inside milling was needed. Also some bolt face milling was evident as well as it was not true from the factory. Those are my experiences. You'll probably get a much better definition of how to tell from a much more experienced member. It's a start tho.

 

[B Nettesheim]

Sounds like someone set the barrel back if the lettering is now rotated from the factory location. One way to check if someone trued the action is to look at the gaps between the bolt handle in its closed position and the action. If the rear gap between the bolt handle and the action is less than the foreward gap chances are someone worked on it. This is all void if it was re-timed after truing it though.
Looks for missing finish on all the mating surfaces too.

 

[Ggmac]

I don't think it would be much of a benefit to true an action then install the factory barrel . It doesn't mean it wasn't done , just not practical to do it that way

 

[hoz53]

Is there any way for a novice to tell if a 700 action has been trued? I recently bought a few rifles as sort of a group pig in a poke deal. One of the rifles is a 700P in 308. It's obviously had work done to it, but I don't know how much. The bbl on the rifle has been spun so the Rem letting and caliber markings are now hidden under the stock line. The trigger has been swapped to a jewel. The bolt handle has been screwed to the body, and I believe tigged.

I had a tough time getting the rifle to chamber a case at first, and believe I've solved that problem by cleaning up part of a burr on the bolt head near the ejector. The chamber is BIG compared to my other 308. With fired case measuring over.483 ish above the web and .462 at the shoulder. The fired cases look kinda bulged to me. The loads were hot enough to flatten primers. I fired it about 10 times today, and it functions well. Sorry to be so long winded, but I wanted to layout everything I know, or don't know about the rifle.

if the lugs were lapped or machined this could increase headspace and be a reason the barrel was setback. The rest of the truing operation may or may not have been done. A lot of 700s have been rebarreled after just lapping the lugs. They may have cut enough of the barrel setting the barrel back to require deepening the chamber by running a reamer into the old chamber and a little runout of the reamer while reaming Could cause your chamber to be larger in dia. than it should be. Just MHO

 

[Danny1788]

you would have to pull the barrel to check the action face if it was trued. heres some pics of an action I trued this morning.


dialing in the action on the bolt race way


First .001" cut


Took a total of .003" to completely clean up the face.

 

[grovey]

These have a parkerized finish . It has a few scratches on the top of the bbl, but those run with the bbl, nothing that looks like the bbl was removed. I don't see anything shiny inside that isn't suppose to be . ( not even the lugs) The gun doesn't show much wear. The bolt body has a shiny spot exposed where it attaches to the handle . I assumed it was tigged when the screws were added, but maybe it's just where they cleaned up the old solder when they timed the bolt. It is centered well in the action. There are no visible date codes on the bbl, but it seems to be a full 26" long. I find that odd too.

 

[Danny1788]

These have a parkerized finish . It has a few scratches on the top of the bbl, but those run with the bbl, nothing that looks like the bbl was removed. I don't see anything shiny inside that isn't suppose to be . ( not even the lugs) The gun doesn't show much wear. The bolt body has a shiny spot exposed where it attaches to the handle . I assumed it was tigged when the screws were added, but maybe it's just where they cleaned up the old solder when they timed the bolt. It is centered well in the action. There are no visible date codes on the bbl, but it seems to be a full 26" long. I find that odd too.

If the back of the lugs are still blued or matte finish then I would say they didn't lap or single point them. I only face the action and lap the lugs in when I true an action, not every "smith" has the same definition of "trued action"

If the bolt was tig welded back on then yes the shiny spot was where he cleaned the old solider off to get to clean metal. I usually just send my bolts to Dan40x or LRI to have them time them after I lap the lugs in.

 

[savagedasher]

Wouldn't a trued action have the thread trued to the lugs along with the action face and all
Parallel to the race way ? Larry

 

[Danny1788]

Wouldn't a trued action have the thread trued to the lugs along with the action face and all
Parallel to the race way ? Larry

Like I said not every smith has the same definition of "TRUED ACTION" when your having a rifle built its best to ask the smith what he does when truing the action..... I personally don't recut the threads, that's my preference. If that is a big deal I will advise someone to buy a custom action then spend all that time and money to true up a factory rem action. I'm not a gunsmith & I only build rifles for myself so that's a difference in opinion as well.

 

[hoz53]

These have a parkerized finish . It has a few scratches on the top of the bbl, but those run with the bbl, nothing that looks like the bbl was removed. I don't see anything shiny inside that isn't suppose to be . ( not even the lugs) The gun doesn't show much wear. The bolt body has a shiny spot exposed where it attaches to the handle . I assumed it was tigged when the screws were added, but maybe it's just where they cleaned up the old solder when they timed the bolt. It is centered well in the action. There are no visible date codes on the bbl, but it seems to be a full 26" long. I find that odd too.

If the lettering is under the stock line the barrel has been removed and setback. They may have only used a different thickness recoil lug to do it, but thats not likely. Or it could be a barrel from a different gun. The date codes could have been cut off if the barrel was shortened but I dont know if remington made barrels longer than 26.

Like I said not every smith has the same definition of "TRUED ACTION" when your having a rifle built its best to ask the smith what he does when truing the action..... I personally don't recut the threads, that's my preference. If that is a big deal I will advise someone to buy a custom action then spend all that time and money to true up a factory rem action. I'm not a gunsmith & I only build rifles for myself so that's a difference in opinion as well.

To 300-- What is holding that cathead in the lathe. It doesnt look like a chuck to me. Also I have wondered about these catheads sticking out pretty far and how guys get them to run true like that. I know thick wall tubing is used and that prob helps.

 

[Danny1788]

If the lettering is under the stock line the barrel has been removed and setback. They may have only used a different thickness recoil lug to do it, but thats not likely. Or it could be a barrel from a different gun. The date codes could have been cut off if the barrel was shortened but I dont know if remington made barrels longer than 26.

To 300-- What is holding that cathead in the lathe. It doesnt look like a chuck to me. Also I have wondered about these catheads sticking out pretty far and how guys get them to run true like that. I know thick wall tubing is used and that prob helps.

Hoz my lathe has a threaded spindle 2-1/4 x 8tpi, I threaded the inside of the tubing then trued the OD of the tubing to the spindle. The back of a LA rem is actually inside the spindle bore about an 1" or so. It does stick out a little, But I'm usually only run about 180RPM to face the action off with HSS.

I could run it in a steady rest but it doesn't vibrate or anything on me and I'm not seeing any deflection while dialing in the action or cutting. This might be due to using the heavy DOM tubing vs others that use aluminum to make theirs.

 

[284winner]

Either way, it's sometimes difficult to tell when a gun is together. Can't see the barrel face of the action. That's typically where an action is milled. It's trued square to the barrel. Some don't need any other machining done, especially the newer 700 actions. Seems as tho they are better today than years ago.

 

[hoz53]

Hoz my lathe has a threaded spindle 2-1/4 x 8tpi, I threaded the inside of the tubing then trued the OD of the tubing to the spindle. The back of a LA rem is actually inside the spindle bore about an 1" or so. It does stick out a little, But I'm usually only run about 180RPM to face the action off with HSS.

I could run it in a steady rest but it doesn't vibrate or anything on me and I'm not seeing any deflection while dialing in the action or cutting. This might be due to using the heavy DOM tubing vs others that use aluminum to make theirs.

Hi 300 Thanks for the info. I just wasnt thinking again. Ive seen plenty of threaded spindle lathes but mine are D type. That cathead looks like 2 different materials? Im thinking of turning a mandrel for each action and just using it between centers with a dog to face the action but I would like to face the lug abutments to in the same setup so Ill have to work on that. I only do my own work also. Happy Holidays

 

[Danny1788]

Hi 300 Thanks for the info. I just wasnt thinking again. Ive seen plenty of threaded spindle lathes but mine are D type. That cathead looks like 2 different materials? Im thinking of turning a mandrel for each action and just using it between centers with a dog to face the action but I would like to face the lug abutments to in the same setup so Ill have to work on that. I only do my own work also. Happy Holidays

Hoz, Its not two materials its a piece of 3 OD x .500 wall x 2.00 ID DOM tubing. The out side of the tubing was not concentric with the ID when I threaded it for my spindle and it was causing vibration at high RPM. So I turned it true to the spindle, I couldn't turn all of it off because my carriage was getting very close to the headstock and lead screw coupling, I use a pipe wrench to tighten it down on the spindle threads.

 

[hoz53]

Hoz, Its not two materials its a piece of 3 OD x .500 wall x 2.00 ID DOM tubing. The out side of the tubing was not concentric with the ID when I threaded it for my spindle and it was causing vibration at high RPM. So I turned it true to the spindle, I couldn't turn all of it off because my carriage was getting very close to the headstock and lead screw coupling, I use a pipe wrench to tighten it down on the spindle threads.

Ok that makes sense. I guess I will try making one of these with a slot in the side so I can use it on bolts. Thanks