Leupold BX-4 Rangefinding Binoculars

Remington Actions

To each their own. I didn't want a Christensen. I looked at them and they are nice rifles, don't get me wrong. I had a rifle in mind that I had wanted to build since I started hunting out west. I went to the point of weighing all of the components. I wanted this rifle build to be everything that I ever wanted in a rifle all in a 8 lb package. Scope and all my rifle weighs 8 lbs. No fancy carbon fiber barrel here. Not a real fan of that look. This was the rifle that I had in my mind and I had the means to build it so I did. I didn't want this rifle to be another off the shelf rifle. Yes it did cost a little more, but it came down to being able to build one or buy one, I built one.
 
Since this thread has had a lot of "talk" about whether to work on a Remington or have it trued/modified/you name it, I just saw a post made on another forum that I think covers this quite well. I know the writer of the post very well, a long time benchrest shooter and a quite good gunsmith in his own right. The smith that did the work, Stan Ware, has passed but had a superb reputation as a first clas gumsmith, and I mean gunsmith, nit a parts assembler. So here is the post:

There are multiple articles in Precision Shooting Magazine by well respected accuracy gunsmiths that documented this improvement.

One of my 6BR's was a test gun for this exact thing. Stan Ware was doing a lot of 700 work at the time and we both wondered how much difference there would be from an out of the box 700 and a fully accurized one. Since Stan was doing a 6BR for me, we decided to find out. I had already purchased a new 700 in 243W just for the action for this project so we had the perfect candidate.

Stan chambered and fitted the Lilja three groove in 6BR .265 neck .020 freebore for it with absolutely z-e-r-o work done to the action. I then pillar bedded it in a McMillan Sako Varmint pattern stock and went to the range to sort it out. The best load was a BIB 65 gr. and H322 that gave 3/8" five shot groups. Pretty good all in all.

Next, Stan squared the action completely. He also bored the reciever and fitted the bolt body with a full length one piece sleeve that he machined for .0015 clearance. The bolt handle was then reattached and repositioned for maximum camming proper timing. The barrel was set back and the tenon and chamber were redone with the exact same reamer. I then redid the bedding since the recoil lug was changed and was now further rearward after facing the reciever off. It took .015 to square the receiver face.

Back at the range with the exact same load as before, it now shot very low to mid .2's for five shot groups. The groups were also much more round that the previous groups from the unaltered action. Another thing that was apparent was how well aligned the barrel was to the squared up action. I could bore sight it 100 yds, adjust the scope to where the bore was pointing and the first shot would be within 2-3 inches from my bore sight....a very good indicator of how square the shoulder/recoil lug/action face is. On the unaltered action, the first shot was a good 12-16 inches from the bore sight.

All in all....a pretty definitive back to back test. It took a 3/8" gun to a sub 1/4" gun. The percentage of improvement was pretty substantial.
 
PopcornSutton said:
All in all....a pretty definitive back to back test. It took a 3/8" gun to a sub 1/4" gun. The percentage of improvement was pretty substantial.
Click to expand...
Sweet. My Smith is going to do some work like that to my rifle in fitting a Lilja. Elk really don't stand a chance with another 1/8 inch improvement. mtmuley
 
blacksheep said:
To each their own. I didn't want a Christensen. I looked at them and they are nice rifles, don't get me wrong. I had a rifle in mind that I had wanted to build since I started hunting out west. I went to the point of weighing all of the components. I wanted this rifle build to be everything that I ever wanted in a rifle all in a 8 lb package. Scope and all my rifle weighs 8 lbs. No fancy carbon fiber barrel here. Not a real fan of that look. This was the rifle that I had in my mind and I had the means to build it so I did. I didn't want this rifle to be another off the shelf rifle. Yes it did cost a little more, but it came down to being able to build one or buy one, I built one.
Click to expand...
Ummm…So you used a Remington 700 action, that you then spend enough money on to equal the price of a Christensen action which would have been lighter?

I wasn’t talking about buying a Christensen rifle. You can get a Christensen action complete with bottom metal. It’s a stainless 700 clone with a piece skeletonized bolt, and material removed from the sides. It’s lighter than a 700.
 
ImBillT said:
Ummm…So you used a Remington 700 action, that you then spend enough money on to equal the price of a Christensen action which would have been lighter?

I wasn’t talking about buying a Christensen rifle. You can get a Christensen action complete with bottom metal. It’s a stainless 700 clone with a piece skeletonized bolt, and material removed from the sides. It’s lighter than a 700.
Click to expand...
This is the only site I haven't seen a bad review of a Christensen on. So yeah. I'll take the 700 to the Smith. mtmuley
 
ImBillT said:
Ummm…So you used a Remington 700 action, that you then spend enough money on to equal the price of a Christensen action which would have been lighter?

I wasn’t talking about buying a Christensen rifle. You can get a Christensen action complete with bottom metal. It’s a stainless 700 clone with a piece skeletonized bolt, and material removed from the sides. It’s lighter than a 700.
Click to expand...
All the christenses I have handled felt cheap. If you are going to spend that might as well spend a little more and get a nice custom.

If not I would buy a bergara premier long before a Christensen
 
PopcornSutton said:
Since this thread has had a lot of "talk" about whether to work on a Remington or have it trued/modified/you name it, I just saw a post made on another forum that I think covers this quite well. I know the writer of the post very well, a long time benchrest shooter and a quite good gunsmith in his own right. The smith that did the work, Stan Ware, has passed but had a superb reputation as a first clas gumsmith, and I mean gunsmith, nit a parts assembler. So here is the post:

There are multiple articles in Precision Shooting Magazine by well respected accuracy gunsmiths that documented this improvement.

One of my 6BR's was a test gun for this exact thing. Stan Ware was doing a lot of 700 work at the time and we both wondered how much difference there would be from an out of the box 700 and a fully accurized one. Since Stan was doing a 6BR for me, we decided to find out. I had already purchased a new 700 in 243W just for the action for this project so we had the perfect candidate.

Stan chambered and fitted the Lilja three groove in 6BR .265 neck .020 freebore for it with absolutely z-e-r-o work done to the action. I then pillar bedded it in a McMillan Sako Varmint pattern stock and went to the range to sort it out. The best load was a BIB 65 gr. and H322 that gave 3/8" five shot groups. Pretty good all in all.

Next, Stan squared the action completely. He also bored the reciever and fitted the bolt body with a full length one piece sleeve that he machined for .0015 clearance. The bolt handle was then reattached and repositioned for maximum camming proper timing. The barrel was set back and the tenon and chamber were redone with the exact same reamer. I then redid the bedding since the recoil lug was changed and was now further rearward after facing the reciever off. It took .015 to square the receiver face.

Back at the range with the exact same load as before, it now shot very low to mid .2's for five shot groups. The groups were also much more round that the previous groups from the unaltered action. Another thing that was apparent was how well aligned the barrel was to the squared up action. I could bore sight it 100 yds, adjust the scope to where the bore was pointing and the first shot would be within 2-3 inches from my bore sight....a very good indicator of how square the shoulder/recoil lug/action face is. On the unaltered action, the first shot was a good 12-16 inches from the bore sight.

All in all....a pretty definitive back to back test. It took a 3/8" gun to a sub 1/4" gun. The percentage of improvement was pretty substantial.
Click to expand...
Interesting test. Hard to say the rifle was definitely performing at its potential before squaring it, but I’ll accept that squaring it helped.

First I’d say that 3/8 MOA is more than good enough for 95% of people on this forum.

Second I’d say that I’ve only had one Remington that didn’t bore sight mighty close. It’s visibly not square when screwing a barrel on, and all three barrels I’ve had on it were timed to point upward instead of left of right. All three barrels were factory Remingtons. One 222, and two 223AIs. All three shot well, but perhaps 3/8” at 100yds is about what they did. It’s an older action. Before they added the anti-bind rail. I think the older ones had a higher percentage of bad actions.

If you can get a Remington recover square cheaply, then by all means go for it. It’s not going to hurt anything. I’m just not into spending a lot of money to improve the receiver. I think if you want something better you should just by something better to begin with.
 
Archer86 said:
All the christenses I have handled felt cheap. If you are going to spend that might as well spend a little more and get a nice custom.

If not I would buy a bergara premier long before a Christensen
Click to expand...
I haven’t handled one, but what felt cheap about them? “Felt”? Was it because they were lighter? Was it the whole gun, or just the receiver that felt cheap?
 
mtmuley said:
This is the only site I haven't seen a bad review of a Christensen on. So yeah. I'll take the 700 to the Smith. mtmuley
Click to expand...
I’ve never seen a Christensen in person. I just assume that a CNC’d 700 clone with better features at the price they’re selling them for seems like a good deal.

Anything wrong with a Stiller?

I’ve been pretty happy with all my Remington actions, I just feel if I wanted to improve on the action itself, I’m inclined to spend that money buying something else instead of working on a Remington.
 
ImBillT said:
I haven’t handled one, but what felt cheap about them? “Felt”? Was it because they were lighter? Was it the whole gun, or just the receiver that felt cheap?
Click to expand...
Just felt cheap in handling. Action was sloppy feeling to me. I have only ever shot one and it shot just fine.

But with saying well if you are going to true a Remington for 400 more you can get a Christensen why not just go and spend the money on a good custom action?
 
I understand the logical argument of buying a custom action and being $$$ ahead over starting with a Rem 700 action. However, I have always wanted a 700. Bought a closeout ADL at Walmart years ago as the base for my project. I had that action trued, a Bartlein barrel installed, added a Triggertech trigger and put it in an AG stock. I probably have the same money in it as I would have a custom action, but I got the rifle I've always wanted and it's a shooter. That's all that matters to me. To each his own.
 
ImBillT said:
I’ve never seen a Christensen in person. I just assume that a CNC’d 700 clone with better features at the price they’re selling them for seems like a good deal.

Anything wrong with a Stiller?

I’ve been pretty happy with all my Remington actions, I just feel if I wanted to improve on the action itself, I’m inclined to spend that money buying something else instead of working on a Remington.
Click to expand...
Kinda like what I started in the first place?
 
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