Truing newer Remington Actions

[jackieschmidt]

I bought a brand new Remington 700 Short Action at the Shilen Swap Meet as the base for a 308 project.

I set it up to true it last night, setting the action body true with the bolt way.

For those that are interested, the threads needed about .008 total before they cleaned up all the way, and the action face ran out .0025 with the bolt way.

These newer actions were rumored to run truer than those in the past, due to Remington upgrades. This particular action did not show this to be true. Here is the serial number, anybody have an idea as to the date of manufacture?

 

[Shooter71]

I have not seen any great improvement despite the CNC rumors, and in some ways (primary extraction) they’re worse. The better ones have been the left handers and long actions, for whatever reason.

 

[GenePoole]

My experience has been similar to yours with RR actions (without the barcode), with the action threads, but overall, the other action dimensions have been pretty tight (within a thou or so). I've heard that they do most of the work in a single fixtureing, but then move to a different machine to do the thread milling operation. This can lead to a lot of runout between the thread centerline and the action centerline.

The RR actions with the barcode are much better. I've had great luck with those, usually not having to do anything to the threads (a plus to a customer that may eventually want to do prefits) and less than a thou cleanup on the face and lugs.

Note: to check the threads, I use a 5 tenths indicator and with the half-nuts engaged for 16tpi, I turn the lathe by hand as the ball of the indicator follows the groove of the thread. This is not ideal as the needle jumps around a bit on the rough surface (and the action/scope-base screw holes), but you can see how it averages out overall. I consider them OK if they keep within a thousandth.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

I don't true as many as I used to but what I can say is that steel plays a big role, not just 700s but customs too. The machine process is the same, but the straightness varies. I have had batches of customs come in extremely straight, then the next run, not so much. Just like barrels, steel quality is critical. Not that Im telling you anything you don't know.

 

[Timberyote]

I bought a brand new Remington 700 Short Action at the Shilen Swap Meet as the base for a 308 project.

I set it up to true it last night, setting the action body true with the bolt way.

For those that are interested, the threads needed about .008 total before they cleaned up all the way, and the action face ran out .0025 with the bolt way.

These newer actions were rumored to run truer than those in the past, due to Remington upgrades. This particular action did not show this to be true. Here is the serial number, anybody have an idea as to the date of manufacture?

View attachment 1260660View attachment 1260661

As for the S/N, my 700 in .223, RR85***A, was manufactured in Feb 2013. This info can from Remington in July of last year.

Hope this helps in some way.