Why did Remington Short Chamber all these R700 barreled actions from the custom shop and how did they finish them off?

[Gun Smith]

About every Remington barrel I ever examined looked just like that, and worse! Usually had gouges in
there two; looked like moon craters. Amazing that the things usually shot pretty good!

 

[pintopete]

About every Remington barrel I ever examined looked just like that, and worse! Usually had gouges in
there two; looked like moon craters. Amazing that the things usually shot pretty good!

…and like you said, that Sporter barrel pictured shoots 1/2-3/4” groups prone with 50gr SPSX bullets pushed by H4198. Plenty good enough for woodchucks. And I don’t consider myself to be a highly skilled shooter.

 

[AlNyhus]

how do you pull a larger diameter reamer through a smaller diameter bore?

The term 'pull through' style reamer, is a bit of a misnomer. -Al

 

[Gun Smith]

Had a buddy of mine years ago that had "pull thru" reamers for 7.62 and .30-06 for finish chambering short chambered GI Garand and GI M-14 (M1-A,M14 semi auto clones) barrels. The set ups he had were all GI surplus if I recall, including GI barrel vise and wrench, throat gauges, headspace gauges. Worked just fine; he was turning the pull thru reamer by hand I believe. He re-barreled my old ratty Winchester Garand for me, and it was quite accurate.

Brownells sold pull thru reamers awhile back, not sure if they still do. Manson made perhaps?

From a production standpoint, it seems like short chambering, then finishing chambers with a pull thru
set up would be a smart way to go if your prime motivation was making money for the stockholders.

 

[AlNyhus]

At one time, Stan Ware...through his connections at Remington... obtained about a dozen Remington hammer forged barrels that hadn't had the pull through chamber reaming done. They were Varmint profile barrels in 223, 22-250, 243 and 308 from the Varmint Synthetic series. Stan finished chambered a number of them and they all shot very well

For what it's worth... -Al

 

[DaveTooley]

At one time, Stan Ware...through his connections at Remington... obtained about a dozen Remington hammer forged barrels that hadn't had the pull through chamber reaming done. They were Varmint profile barrels in 223, 22-250, 243 and 308 from the Varmint Synthetic series. Stan finished chambered a number of them and they all shot very well

For what it's worth... -Al

I think I have several Remington barrel blanks around here somewhere. 338 and maybe a 30. That is if I didn't cut them up to make something.
The old custom shop made their own buttoned barrels. When it moved to SD I don't know what they used.

 

[DaveTooley]

Do you think the barrels are remington made? Thanks Dave

My guess is they were made by Remington. If they were a custom barrel they would be finished with the correct bolts. With that said PT&G bolts were not a drop in replacement for a factory bolt. Clean the barrel and take a good look at the rifling. I use a loupe most of the time and I can see the hammer marks in barrels. A bore scope inspection of the chamber area would be in order. Is it cut with a finish reamer or a rougher. Also just how short is short chambered? I seem to remember that to get a PT&G bolt to headspace correctly on factory barreled action you cut the rear of the lugs.
As I said a mishmash of parts. They are a remodeling project.

 

[GNERGY]

All 4 of the barreled action I received had bright shiny bores, not like the factory barreled remingtons I have purchased before. I say the barrels are NOT factory barrels. I would rather have a PTG bolt anyway. Stan said only 20% of the actions had factory bolts.
Tarey

 

[hoz53]

My guess is they were made by Remington. If they were a custom barrel they would be finished with the correct bolts. With that said PT&G bolts were not a drop in replacement for a factory bolt. Clean the barrel and take a good look at the rifling. I use a loupe most of the time and I can see the hammer marks in barrels. A bore scope inspection of the chamber area would be in order. Is it cut with a finish reamer or a rougher. Also just how short is short chambered? I seem to remember that to get a PT&G bolt to headspace correctly on factory barreled action you cut the rear of the lugs.
As I said a mishmash of parts. They are a remodeling project.

Thanks for all the info Dave. The bores look pretty good and one is a 5R- don’t know that that will do me any good. Don’t have a magnum headspace gauge yet but on factory loads the handles will just start to drop. You’re right a project I’m hopefully going to pull the barrels to begin with. They are stainless actions and barrels so I hope they aren’t galled and I can get them apart.

Edit—. The barrels came off easier than I thought they would.

 

[hoz53]

At one time, Stan Ware...through his connections at Remington... obtained about a dozen Remington hammer forged barrels that hadn't had the pull through chamber reaming done. They were Varmint profile barrels in 223, 22-250, 243 and 308 from the Varmint Synthetic series. Stan finished chambered a number of them and they all shot very well

For what it's worth... -Al

Thanks Al.

All 4 of the barreled action I received had bright shiny bores, not like the factory barreled remingtons I have purchased before. I say the barrels are NOT factory barrels. I would rather have a PTG bolt anyway. Stan said only 20% of the actions had factory bolts.
Tarey

What type extractors do yours need? Thanks

 

[GNERGY]

1 rem 2 sako and 1 mini m16
Tarey

 

[hoz53]

1 rem 2 sako and 1 mini m16
Tarey

Ok thanks

 

[Garrett E Booth]

FYI
After you order, call Parkwest, the former Remington Custom Shop in Sturgis to ask them to finish the chamber before shipping it. They did mine free. Here's the number: 605-490-0705. You may have to leave a message.

 

[hoz53]

FYI
After you order, call Parkwest, the former Remington Custom Shop in Sturgis to ask them to finish the chamber before shipping it. They did mine free. Here's the number: 605-490-0705. You may have to leave a message.

thats interesting— this parkwest is an operating business right now? i thought the rem custom shop was shut down when rem shut down? who is this parkwest? thanks much for the info

 

[Garrett E Booth]

They are the ones actually fulfilling the orders from PTG. Here's a snip of the conversation. It doesn't show everything, but you can see the gist of it.

 

[Will Henry]

I watched a worker finish reaming 700's and it was done as described. The barreled action was held in a vee block arrangement, the reamer inserted from the breech and chucked at the muzzle end. The bolt was inserted behind the reamer, the machine was turned on, and when the bolt handle dropped, the chamber was done. Given the number of eccentric chambers which were produced, this may not have been the best system ever. Interestingly enough, some Swiss Arms barrels I looked at had the chambers forged right along with the bores, with no reaming, and they were superb. No marks, even under magnification. The barrels are very accurate, by the way.
The Illion plant is an OLD facility. Even the Cincinatti cnc machines, dedicated to the Mag 10 shotguns, were far from new when I was there. WH

 

[Ford]

I've spoken with Ward over a month ago.. They are up and running. Just waiting on PTG to get my order straight..

 

[k80skeet]

So, I’m just gonna throw this out there for contemplation. In about 2008 - 2009 I spent time in the shop in Ilion. The guys there were very nice, knowledgeable, bend over backwards to make things right kind of guys. While there they were frustrated that they were tasked with the sporting line QC comebacks. As part of all that was going on, they had regular barreled actions that were at their disposal to fix issues with regular line products. There was little custom work going on at the time, and they had no tooling to make .224 barrels any longer. Now, these barreled actions that we all bought may have been ear tagged for the custom shop, but for what purpose? I do not believe mine were crafted in the Custom Shop. As far as what I know, Custom Shop barrels were button rifled, not hammer forged. Bore scope a 40x compared to a 700BDL or anything similar. You can usually see the advance marks in a hammer forged barrel.

About other things mentioned, in the regular factory you could watch the red hot ingots come out of a furnace and go into the hammer forge. They did not like visitors to stay there long because t.he ingots and furnace were hot as hades, and the hammer forge very loud. Although I watched this process on two occasions, I never heard or knew that the chamber was partially formed there. It very well could have been. I just did not notice or ask that detail. I also missed the chambering process in the regular factory somehow.

I think it bears mentioning that the Mike Walker Custom Shop, and what it was over the many years thereafter, ebbed and flowed in terms of what their primary tasks were. Obviously they were controlled by upper management. I’ll say it again, the guys there were super, Aces in terms of customer satisfaction.

Just observations at a snapshot in time.

All the 40-X's were button pulled all others were hammer forage

 

[pintopete]

All the 40-X's were button pulled all others were hammer forged

That sounds right…I enjoyed my time there. Wished those same guys were there still, fairly near me. The reality of the situation though was that it all needed change unfortunately. As I said, they had no tooling for .224 and smaller. They were using Shilen barrels at that time when need arose for special situation.

 

[hoz53]

That sounds right…I enjoyed my time there. Wished those same guys were there still, fairly near me. The reality of the situation though was that it all needed change unfortunately. As I said, they had no tooling for .224 and smaller. They were using Shilen barrels at that time when need arose for special situation.

Thanks for this