Trued Rem 700 vs Custom Actions

[Sniper338]

A percentage scale 0 to 100%, how much does a good custom action contribute to accuracy?

Most of us know the barrel, the chamber, the gunsmithing/machinest skills, the shooter, the wind reading skill, the quality of bedding, the hand loads, the tighter tolerances, the smoothness, yada yada yada, list of other factors goes on and on.... all things even, at what point does a custom action play a part in precision? Maybe chambering the round more concentric to the chamber? Tighter lugs lock up?

Lots of emphasis gets put on actions, however in depth thinking, I personally conclude an action plays a very small part in overall precision/accuracy. My guess 1% or less. For example, I have a trued rem 700 6BR where I believe I could never shoot the difference if it was a custom action and all else equal.

To take this further, cutting out some factors, a rail gun, all things equal, trued 700 vs a bat lets say... is there any statistical data to prove the bat action would be more accurate on target everything else equal? If so, What are the factors that give the bat actioned rig the advantage on target?

At the end of the day we all know for the price of a stainless 700 plus price of truing, you may as well spend $100 more and get a entry level custom action... however this is besides the point. We often see questions as to what action should I get, and a big emphasis is towards accuracy, not strength, mechanics, safety, lock up, etc for the desired cartridge.

Just a good debatable, in depth question to discuss vs the boring threads that wont go away...

 

[Sniper338]

Im no pro but my guess all-things-equal, for now is:

Action - .5%
Barrel - 10%
Stock fit/bedding - 10%
Gunsmith machining skills - 79.5%

 

[LA50SHOOTER]

Ignition and timing as well as tolerances are attributes that one should consider and favor the custom action. Trust me, if custom actions weren’t worth the money then competitive shooters wouldn’t be using them.

 

[1shot]

I shoot the Kelbly/Stolle Panda. They use the Rem. fire control assembly and for good reason. Their Atlas is a Rem. clone but the precision of the Atlas far eclipses the Rem.
By the time you buy a new Rem. receiver, have it tuned and trued, unless you do the work yourself, your price point will be close to what you can buy an Atlas for.
In regards to barrels, I think you are very low on your %.
A junk barrel on anyone's receiver is still a junk barrel.
In regards to bedding, I was privy to a conversation between to icons of the shooting sports. Being the youngster I kept my mouth shut and listened. The statement was made, "if you have the three B's, everything else will fall into place. Bullets, barrels and bedding". Some have included brass in that statement, but that's how I heard it.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

 

[dmoran]

Another aspect that I feel is valid to the topic is an actions smoothness to functionality. Which directly effects tracking, cant, and return to battery capabilities, all of which effect precision do to aiming error. Any amount of upset and/or shifting to the rifle or its supporting setup do to functionality, will create certain amounts of aiming error, no matter how significant or insignificant the amount.

 

[dminn1]

As Mr. Moran alludes to above, I think the ease of obtaining a smooth opening and closing action action with all the desirable extras that come with the top end custom actions is why top competitors chose the custom action route rather than the custom actions offering any intrinsic accuracy advantage.

 

[dolek]

How many custom actions did you test before forming your opinion ?



" Lots of emphasis gets put on actions, however in depth thinking, I personally conclude an action plays a very small part in overall precision/accuracy. My guess 1% or less. For example, I have a trued rem 700 6BR where I believe I could never shoot the difference if it was a custom action and all else equal. "

 

[LA50SHOOTER]

Im no pro but my guess all-things-equal, for now is:

Action - .5%
Barrel - 10%
Stock fit/bedding - 10%
Gunsmith machining skills - 79.5%

An accurate rifle is an entire system where all components and the workmanship have to be treated with precision. Any one item not correct creates a scenario where accuracy suffers and troubleshooting begins to solve the anomaly and if multiple things are wrong or substandard then it compounds the problem of achieving good accuracy.

 

[dolek]

Im no pro but my guess all-things-equal, for now is:

Action - .5%
Barrel - 10%
Stock fit/bedding - 10%
Gunsmith machining skills - 79.5%


10% for a barrel ? Now I know this is not a serious thread.

 

[farmerjohn]

I own several custom actions, Bat, Panda, Pierce, plus a lot of factory actions, and several "trued" Remingtons. A couple from the old days of bench rest and a couple I had done when I got to fooling around with long range. I will list my in favor of points for customs:
1. I love being able to have a new barrel shipped from the manufacturer straight to my gunsmith and him be able to chamber it, time it, and ship it to me. It will be within .002 of my old chamber ( less if he has your reamer)and within a couple of inches of vertical from my scope adjustment.
2. I have gotten so used to RBLPRE that I would not be able to compete to the best of my ability with out that advantage. Not that I'm any threat to the better guys anyway but I like doing the best I can. Sometimes when they are having a bad day I'll get a pork chop while they are hunting a steak.
3. I love good machine work, close tolerances, and smoothness of the action..
4. I love the customer service from Bat and Panda, not dissing any of the rest, these two are just the only ones I have experience with and I have been told that the others are just as good. When you need parts or advice they are RR&A.
5. Lastly, you will accumulate old barrels. You can be fireforming in 5 minutes and save the good barrel or practcing in the wind, or using up all your old brass and broken boxes of bullets (not to mention the 10,000 Tula primers you bought thinking Hillary was going to be elected) shooting prairie dogs. You can even have them rechambered.
Well that's all the pros I think I know so if anyone wants the cons let me know....
Farmer

 

[Jimmy James]

I have at least a half dozen "match" grade and benchrest grade rifles made on the venerable 700. The SS single shot actions seem to take less work to true than the blue steel ones. I helped my smith take off a barrel the other day as he needed a 3rd hand and I was there. Later that day he texted me that once he got to smithing on it, it turned out to be the most crooked threading he had ever seen on a 700 action but he said he could "straighten things out". If it had been mine I would have told him to junk it and save the bolt for parts. Depending on how much work it takes to true a particular action, the cost of the action ($400 for a SS single shot) and the cost of a comparable "custom action", my costs for a trued 700 are typically half of what a really good "custom" action costs. PS...I have one Kelbly Stolle Panda action gun and it's really nice. Makes me want another.

 

[Drop Port]

The way I see it is, the 700 is a fine action that is mass produced and can have accuracy issues attributed from poor quality control to acceptable tolerances for mass production. These issues don't or shouldn't exist with customs. Most if not all issues can usually be corrected with a quality truing.

- Two that come to mind are one stock 700 I had wouldn't shoot consistently, with erratic groups. Only one bolt lug was making contact. After lapping the crap out of it to get some contact the rifle shot extremely well.

- Another had flyers that were driving me nuts. One day while indoor dry firing i heard different ignition sounds, snap, snap, thud, cleaning up the fire control and replacing the twisted spring cured the ignition problem.

After a thorough proper truing there is probably very little difference in accuracy, if, "if" it was able to be fully trued. Some of them are pretty jacked up, nothing like seeing an off center primer strike on an action you dumped a pile of $ into.
Will that cause accuracy issues, I don't know, but if I know it's there it would drive me nuts.

 

[Bart B.]

A percentage scale 0 to 100%, how much does a good custom action contribute to accuracy?

Very little, in my opinion. If the receiver and bolt faces are squared up, bolt lugs lapped to full contact, is stiff enough and it resists twisting in the bedding from barrel torque, there is little difference.

Depending on the conditions and standards one uses to meet accuracy objectives, their opinions will vary from others. This is a rubber ruler scenario.

What's best, largest groups or smallest ones, or mean radius, for the best criteria?

 

[Papa Charlie]

I shoot the Kelbly/Stolle Panda. They use the Rem. fire control assembly and for good reason. Their Atlas is a Rem. clone but the precision of the Atlas far eclipses and Rem.
By the time you buy a new Rem. receiver, have it tuned and trued, unless you do the work yourself, your price point will be close to what you can buy an Atlas for.
In regards to barrels, I think you are very low on your %.
A junk barrel on anyone's receiver is still a junk barrel.
In regards to bedding, I was privy to a conversation between to icons of the shooting sports. Being the youngster I kept my mouth shut and listened. The statement was made, "if you have the three B's, everything else will fall into place. Bullets, barrels and bedding". Some have included brass in that statement, but that's how I heard it.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

Lloyd,
I am not challenging your statement here, just trying to learn as I have a trued 700 on my FTR rifle. Shoots pretty darn good although I have never fired a custom action rifle.
Question regarding your statement above. Let's say you have already had your 700 factory action tuned and trued, custom Benchmark barrel, Timney trigger, XLR chassis (yes this is mine). If I were to replace the action on my rifle with a Bat or Bordon or some similar custom action. What difference in performance could one expect? I mean, would one expect it to be a noticeable difference on the paper?
Looking at it from my point of view. I have had to develop the rifle over two years, primarily due to lack of funds, doing a little at a time. If I purchased a custom action that would run about $1300. I could sell my action for maybe $300 (rounding here). Then I would most likely have to have my barrel matched to the new action at a cost of $300. So for lets say a net of $1300 (assuming everything else would work with the custom action) would I really see that much of a difference on paper?
I ask because I am contemplating this for the hopefully not so distant future.

 

[joehjr95]

I have a Remington that has been trued. My dad has one Tubb Rifle left, and had many others, and my girlfriend shoots a Defiance. There is no difference in accuracy between them. Granted one barrel might shoot better, but there is no difference between the actions. Once a Remington has been trued and broken in so it's smooth, it's just as a good as a custom action.

 

[jdh47]

Remington actions can be made to shoot but after you pay for that and the extra addons like a side bolt release. New Bolt to fit the race which still needs to be honed or reamed straight and action and bolt timing plus extractor work you are usually into it for more than it takes to buy a good clone. From what I have seen of the newer Remington 700 actions they are machined pretty straight but still there is enough work left plus tuning them and adding on stuff that comes standard on customs you are ahead of the game in going with a custom. Add to that the possibility that the guy you hire to machine the action has a pretty good chance of messing it up if he doesn't know what he thinks he knows.

 

[farmerjohn]

What jdh47 says is exactly right, he's had 71 yrs to learn it and I've had 73 to learn he's right...
Farmer

 

[Milo 2.0]

You can polish a turd to a high luster 100 bucks at a time. But when you slice into it, the odor is still there.

 

[dragman]

I have seen trued Remington actions perform very well and consistently, and I have seen some that didn't. With trueing a regular action I think it's more in the gunsmith who is actually doing the work than the starting action it self. Those for the most part aren't issues with any good custom. Like anything there are levels of how good if your buying a "cheap" rem footprint clone action or having a Remington trued it's probably pretty equal as long as your gunsmith is good. But I would argue once your talking about the higher end custom actions they are better. Can't put a % on it but it's like a miss does it really matter if you miss by an inch or a foot? I don't want to leave any % on the table if I can help it.

 

[Bart B.]

You can polish a turd to a high luster 100 bucks at a time. But when you slice into it, the odor is still there.

If you throw a hundred of each at a target and both have equal accuracy, what's the difference?

What if the polished ones are irregular shaped from too much handling and rubbing and their group is bigger?