where to search for donor actions

[they call me trinity]

Pawn shops internet, are there venues that sell blueprinted actions by themselves
Do you guys like an action more than the 700 that is not custom.
Ive heard that the savage is rounded at the bottom and thus less apt to a sturdy bedding.
Ive also heard that the qc on 700s has gone down hill in the last few years, what are your thoughts.
lastly who do like to use on blueprinting an action, im on a budget.

 

[Minesweeper3433]

Have you built a custom rifle before or is this your first? If you just want a donation action your best bet is to go to a major retailer like academy sports or gander mountain or cabelas or dicks. During sales you can get an entire rifle with cheap scope for under 400 dollars. Academy sports had 700 long actions for 370 the other week before holiday season hit. But if you are wanting it trued just spend the money and get a nice custom action and skip the truing procedure all together.

 

[fullersson]

+1 for Minesweeper3433.

I building a .223 for a guy who had a 700 action already. He wanted the action trued so I sent it to Greg Tannel. He does great work so and I'm not complaining about the prices I'm just letting you know how much it cost to have an action trued. To have this action trued is going to run somewhere in the neighborhood of $550. Now that's a complete overhaul of the action and bolt. After you buy a donor action $400-$500 and then have it trued you're at $950-$1050. You can get a custom action for around the same price. Brian Brown.

 

[RJinTexas]

Take Brain's advice. I have several trued 700's & XP's and yes they shoot as well as most of my custom actions. But their resale value isn't anywhere near what it cost to build them. There are several good Remington clones out there that are available that will allow you to take advantage of all the after market components that readily available for the 700 Remington. Unless I already owned the downer action I'd never consider building on factory action period and even then I'd prefer selling it and purchasing a custom action for any futher build.

RJ

 

[Terry]

Pawn shops internet, are there venues that sell blueprinted actions by themselves
Do you guys like an action more than the 700 that is not custom.
Ive heard that the savage is rounded at the bottom and thus less apt to a sturdy bedding.
Ive also heard that the qc on 700s has gone down hill in the last few years, what are your thoughts.
lastly who do like to use on blueprinting an action, im on a budget.

Don't believe everything you hear. The Savage Target Actions are a fine action. Bedding is no issue. I buy mine from Jim Briggs on the Savage Shooters website.

Terry

 

[they call me trinity]

This is my first build
I dont have any fondeness or distatse for 700s, im just using it as a basis of comparison. 500 on blueprinting an action seems awfully high as i,ve seen the service offered for quite a bit less, 300. For the additional money what does mr tannel do to make it better.
I believe Ive heard that custom actions still need to be trued, Do you guys have expreience that indicates a custom action is good to go out of the box.
THe resale value is a good point.

In an additional topic, when it comes time to rebarrel in a new caliber, must the action be reserviced by a machinist again?

 

[butchlambert]

Trinity,
I don't think you read the whole post. He also included a new bolt assembly in the price. You really need to understand what a quality job consists of. I have put my custom receivers in my truing jigs and have found no need to true them up. If you want a quality, accurate hunting rifle, have your smith check and square the receiver face, chamber a new barrel, a quality bedding job, and trigger. you should have a honest .6-.7 MOA rifle. Ain't much that it won't kill. If you are doing competition, no choice but a custom. Do a lot of checking before you do anything.

 

[alf]

If you want a quality, accurate hunting rifle, have your smith check and square the receiver face, chamber a new barrel, a quality bedding job, and trigger. you should have a honest .6-.7 MOA rifle. Ain't much that it won't kill. If you are doing competition, no choice but a custom.

Perfect recipe that I follow, with the addition of a surface ground lug.

 

[Cort]

It depends on your shooting game. A hunting rifle does not need to be as accurate as a target rifle. Minutes of deer are much bigger than minutes of X's.

In my opinion, a custom action is the best buy for target work. By the time you buy the donor action and have it reworked, you have very close to the cost of the custom action without the quality or resale.

For hunting, I would probably go with a Savage action, a custom barrel and a custom stock. Jim Briggs is my source for most Savage stuff. Prices are good; service is good; and support is better. With any non-custom action, I would have the action face squared and use a ground recoil lug. With the Savage action, you can install the barrel yourself. Jim has recently started stocking barrels with barrel nuts for the Remington 700 actions so you could install the barrel yourself on a Remington also.

Cort

 

[22XC Guy]

Another alternative is Kebly's Atlas cloned 700 Remington action. It's well built with anyone needs in mind, plus quality...

Steve

 

[Keith Glasscock]

Squaring a receiver... I'll never do it again, okay, just once... To do a hunting rifle, I had my smith square up my old remington 308. He faced the front of the receiver, the face of the locking abutments, recut the threads (they were .080 out!), and trued up the back of the bolt lugs and bolt face. I now have a large-shank Remington 700 with a Hart barrel. I haven't told him yet, but this thing shoots bugholes when I can hold it down (recoil control can makes groups hard to shoot). Heck, I've even shot it during our monthly 600 yard F-class practice scoring a 99-4X for the 10 shots I got off before I decided to save the barrel (hunting barrels get warm - fast!). It also shoots my 110 V-max load into extrordinary precision - better than the rifle it was worked up on!

What didn't we do? We didn't change the bolt or even attempt to reduce the bolt clearance. We didn't bush the firing pin. We didn't put a match chamber in the barrel so I could go buy ammo if I came up short on a hunt, and we didn't spend but $250 doing it (that's for the receiver - barrel fitting was more). What I did do is wait quite a while (he's busy for a reason), pay shipping both ways, deal with all kinds of hassles from UPS, and wait some more.

If I was building a new rifle (instead of rebuilding one I already have) I'd be buying a custom, no question. There are some available for less than $950. I know where to get the action, and the barrel now, so I could have a barreled action in 3 weeks (I have a hobby gunsmith (benchrest guy) that just started his own business locally - he gives me a little quicker service because we're friends). That custon action has other advantages too.

As for bedding, I've bedded both Remington and Savage actions. They are both round bottomed, and about the same diameter. There is no difference there! Whoever you got that info from , especially if it is your gunsmith, I'd run (not walk) away from...

 

[fe1]

Trinity, My smith claims to true custom actions.As far as what it consists of I have no idea.He may just be miking everything to see if the dimensions are square and accurate.I would like to think that if something is out square he would square it up.Personnally I would want my action checked to see if it were dimensionally true.Just for piece of mind.
I'm sure there will be a charge for the time of checking the dimensions and a charge if something needs to be squared.I suppose one would have to ask their smith if it were checked and if any truing were neccessary.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[they call me trinity]

in looking at the custom actions page I see that lawton and stiller are the cheapest two custom actions. Do you guys have any personal experience between the two,
Do you prefer one to the other
Is there another I should consider in the immediate price range
and finally will they need to be trued?
thanks

 

[fe1]

I have a Stiller Rattler action set up in 30BR.The smith that put it together did not do any truing to it and said it was basically the same as a Kelbly Stolle Kodiak. I have no complaints on the Stiller Rattler action but its the only Stiller I own.I also have the Stolle Kodiak and have no complaints on it either. I did have to send the bolt handle to Kelbly's to get the shank of the handle relieved to clear the eyepiece of my scope.
Hope that helps.

 

[Keith Glasscock]

Trung a custom action would be a matter of assuming that your smith can dial the action in better than the manufacturer. Also, you would be assuming that the smith's lathe is equally or more accurate than the manufacturer's. I can't imagine that any custom action would be out enough to be detectable, much less something I would want to have machined by my smith. If a new actio isn't true, it should go back to the manufacturer for correction.

The price you pay for a custom is for a true action with proper clearances.

I know of one place that has Stiller actions in stock. If you decide to go that way, PM me - they aren't a site sponsor here so I'm not going to advertise for them.

 

[GSPV]

Don't know what's coming out of Lawton these days, but I bought a NIB 7500 second hand a couple of years ago that needed about as much truing as a factory Remington. I got it cheap...because it came "locked up" by a firing pin that too large for its hole. In addition to that, the tenon threads were over-sized. The recoil lug was not square. The bolt face was not square. It had ejection problems (it's a LB/RP/RE).

Since they don't use a coned bolt, it has issues feeding 6BR rounds. You have to manually get the nose of the bullet inside the chamber. Can't just drop the round in the port and push the bolt closed. It's feeds 30's just fine, though.

It now shoots, but it cost me as much money to true it as it did to buy it. I wouldn't go there again.

YMMV, Greg J.