70's 700 Build By Alaskan Hard Head

[gbflyer]

A few people, okay 1, have asked me about my exploits learning about rifle building. I am a hobbyist, I do not perform work for others, and assume all risk for what I do. As I’ve stated before, I live in rural Alaska and have no hands - on mentor. We have to fly or boat to where we live. I have a fair grasp of mechanical things and quite a bit of metal fabrication and welding experience thanks to a former life as a produce farmer and builder of custom equipment for such, but not really any precision machining experience up until 3 years ago. I do have a bit of a perfectionist way about me for some things according to some in my family. I am no machinist or gunsmith by any stretch of the imagination and claim no position as an expert. This, and the writing, is purely an exercise in passing the time while trying to keep my mushy brain somewhat sharp during the cold, wet SE AK winter.

I decided that if I wanted to learn about this stuff I was on my own. Thankfully, there are a TON of resources out there, both online and in books, and I am forever grateful to those who are willing to share freely with complete strangers. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to put yourself forth in front of a community so often times very willing to eat their own (not so much here at the Nosler Forum. Thanks all). Please keep that in mind if you can stand to read my 8th grade writing and feel like hitting reply. All constructive stuff is taken to heart and appreciated. Sorry in advance as I don’t take a bunch of pictures, and much of the minutia of my feeble machining skills are left out. Please excuse punctuation, and grammar, I’m a product of a very sorry public school system and no college. So, if you’ve had plenty of caffeine, or need material to prepare for a 2 hour nap, here goes:

Chapter 1.
I was perusing Alaska’s List on cold January day and noticed a used Remington 700 in 7mm Mag for $249.00. My gears started turning as a friend was in the market for a donor action. And I'm always in the market for a rifle project. I quickly called the shop in Anchorage that advertised it and within minutes the owner had my credit card number for the rifle plus $50 shipping and packaging fee for the trip via US Postal to the Alaska bush. A few days later my friend who is an FFL dealer called and said it was ready for transfer and pick up. The rifle was as advertised, some slight pitting on the barrel with the action as clean as a hound's nuts minus a little bit of bluing. The ADL stock had a couple of bruises but the innards had never been molested by any ham - fisted Gun Savage with an inletting tool (Dremel) and a tube of JB Weld nor was the barrel channel scraped with a barrel floating tool ordered up fresh from the Brownells catalog. Much respect paid to the old owner. My friend declined the deal as he was really wanting a stainless model so he is continuing the hunt closer to home. It was up to me.

Now I'm one of those who dives right in. Within minutes of getting home I had it stripped down and in the barrel vise. Wouldn't budge. A little heat on the breech from a propane torch. Still nothing. At this point, I remembered a post I read on the benchrest.com forum written by a fellow who was doing this when I was in diapers. He said to chuck it in the lathe and cut a relief in the old barrel right in front of the recoil lug to release the tension and you'd be home free. So it was off to the 1970's - era 15X40 Enterprise that used to live at the Lemon Creek Correctional Facility in Juneau sooner than I expected. The relief cut came out beautifully, not a mark on the factory recoil lug. But the damned barrel still would not back out. At this point, I began to wonder if I'd gotten the bargain I'd been so eager to get my hands on. So, maybe foolishly, put a 3/4" drive socket on a 3' ratchet and torqued up the barrel vise until my eyes bugged out, cranked down the Wheeler action wrench a little tighter, and gave the handle a good whack with a dead blow. It moved! Now normally, when it moves, you're home free. This time, not so much. It came hard until the bitter end. I knew it was going to be bad, but at this point I was all in.

 

[salmonchaser]

A few people, okay 1, have asked me about my exploits learning about rifle building. I am a hobbyist, I do not perform work for others, and assume all risk for what I do. As I’ve stated before, I live in rural Alaska and have no hands - on mentor. We have to fly or boat to where we live. I have a fair grasp of mechanical things and quite a bit of metal fabrication and welding experience thanks to a former life as a produce farmer and builder of custom equipment for such, but not really any precision machining experience up until 3 years ago. I do have a bit of a perfectionist way about me for some things according to some in my family. I am no machinist or gunsmith by any stretch of the imagination and claim no position as an expert. This, and the writing, is purely an exercise in passing the time while trying to keep my mushy brain somewhat sharp during the cold, wet SE AK winter.

I decided that if I wanted to learn about this stuff I was on my own. Thankfully, there are a TON of resources out there, both online and in books, and I am forever grateful to those who are willing to share freely with complete strangers. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to put yourself forth in front of a community so often times very willing to eat their own (not so much here at the Nosler Forum. Thanks all). Please keep that in mind if you can stand to read my 8th grade writing and feel like hitting reply. All constructive stuff is taken to heart and appreciated. Sorry in advance as I don’t take a bunch of pictures, and much of the minutia of my feeble machining skills are left out. Please excuse punctuation, and grammar, I’m a product of a very sorry public school system and no college. So, if you’ve had plenty of caffeine, or need material to prepare for a 2 hour nap, here goes:

Chapter 1.
I was perusing Alaska’s List on cold January day and noticed a used Remington 700 in 7mm Mag for $249.00. My gears started turning as a friend was in the market for a donor action. And I'm always in the market for a rifle project. I quickly called the shop in Anchorage that advertised it and within minutes the owner had my credit card number for the rifle plus $50 shipping and packaging fee for the trip via US Postal to the Alaska bush. A few days later my friend who is an FFL dealer called and said it was ready for transfer and pick up. The rifle was as advertised, some slight pitting on the barrel with the action as clean as a hound's nuts minus a little bit of bluing. The ADL stock had a couple of bruises but the innards had never been molested by any ham - fisted Gun Savage with an inletting tool (Dremel) and a tube of JB Weld nor was the barrel channel scraped with a barrel floating tool ordered up fresh from the Brownells catalog. Much respect paid to the old owner. My friend declined the deal as he was really wanting a stainless model so he is continuing the hunt closer to home. It was up to me.

Now I'm one of those who dives right in. Within minutes of getting home I had it stripped down and in the barrel vise. Wouldn't budge. A little heat on the breech from a propane torch. Still nothing. At this point, I remembered a post I read on the benchrest.com forum written by a fellow who was doing this when I was in diapers. He said to chuck it in the lathe and cut a relief in the old barrel right in front of the recoil lug to release the tension and you'd be home free. So it was off to the 1970's - era 15X40 Enterprise that used to live at the Lemon Creek Correctional Facility in Juneau sooner than I expected. The relief cut came out beautifully, not a mark on the factory recoil lug. But the damned barrel still would not back out. At this point, I began to wonder if I'd gotten the bargain I'd been so eager to get my hands on. So, maybe foolishly, put a 3/4" drive socket on a 3' ratchet and torqued up the barrel vise until my eyes bugged out, cranked down the Wheeler action wrench a little tighter, and gave the handle a good whack with a dead blow. It moved! Now normally, when it moves, you're home free. This time, not so much. It came hard until the bitter end. I knew it was going to be bad, but at this point I was all in.

I enjoyed the story. As far as your writing goes it is far better than most of the guys who worked for me. They all had college educations to boot.

I logged one summer, 1976, out of Ketchikan. Good lord it rained a lot. When classes started at Oregon State I arrived a true Beaver, web feet and all.
Every time I think we're having a wet summer out in Bristol Bay I think of my time in SE Alaska. I don't feel so bad then.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gbflyer]

Chapter 2.

The good news was that the barrel was out. As any pro who has messed with the tube on a virgin 700 knows, and I can now again verify, that the end threads nearest the lugs are cut very shallow. My understanding is that this is because the factory uses a tap that is slightly tapered at the beginning to thread the receiver. Apparently a gorilla installed this barrel and cranked it right on down with something comparable to the force an Alaskan Roughneck can apply with a 48" pipe wrench. The first 3 threads on the barrel shank were missing, presumably still inside my action. In retrospect, a smart, experienced person would have known this and cut the barrel off, then would carefully bore it out of the action. But that guy ain't me. Luckily, the folks who designed the action figured it would be a good idea to make it out of something harder than the barrel, so the damage was minimal, but my test stub was not going to thread in. Pity, this is one of the good old “no prefix” action from the 70’s (just like me). I had never taken an action all the way through the “blueprint” stage. Like a friend used to say, “God hates a coward.”

After reading Steve Aker for the 10th time and doing a lot of research online, the next day I was ready. I lucked on a good piece of stress proof and was able to turn what I think is a good truing mandrel. Manson and PTG make nice ground ones with bushings that the pros use but I don’t have one and loath the waiting. This particular action is a little tighter at the rear bridge than the front, so after a bit of fooling around between centers using an old school lathe dog, it fit perfectly. Next I bored a truing collar out of some 1.75 steel round stock I found in the junk pile. Again, with luck on my side I was able to get a nice fit without multiple examples going in scrap bin. An hour or so later it was again between centers to cut my truing pass on the collar and trued the face while I was there. Moving to the 4 jaw, I was able to set up as perfectly as I could carefully using the mandrel to measure for concentricity and radial alignment.

Cutting internal threads in an action is not rocket science but also not for the faint of heart. I had practiced a bit, but now it was in real time. Lucky for me, this old lathe has a very heavy 3 phase motor and I was too cheap/lazy to build a roto-phase as we have single – phase power to our shop. I happened upon a post in Practical Machinist when starting this endeavor 3 winter’s ago and found out about the Teco VFD. What an incredible piece of hardware. This $165 smart box takes your single phase and makes it into 3-phase. A wonderful feature of this is you can adjust the cycles, providing infinitely variable spindle speeds between gear changes. With back gear engaged and at 20 cycles, I got down to a crawl, allowing the novice with Maglight held in teeth to carefully, albeit very slowly, thread to a shoulder inside without worry. So about an hour later, my test stub threaded in and out better than new. I was able to stay at the stock 1.065 major diameter, fully cleaning up the threads as well as straightening the evil work of the factory hand tap. Another bonus!

What's left of the old barrel:

 

[DrMike]

Very neat account of your initial steps toward a build. I'll watch the remainder of this account with interest.

 

[ethmoid1999]

I love it! Keep telling us the rest!

 

[ShadeTree]

I'll be reading the rest with great interest. I love a challenging dive into a project with some parts unknown. It's fun for once following along while getting to skip out on some of the worry and fussing that goes along with it. Ha. Good job so far.

Invention from necessity, experience of the past, and a brave charge ahead can produce some satisfying results, looking forward to the rest of it.

 

[elkeater2]

My departed Mom (former English teacher) would have given you A+ for content and originality! Keep 'em coming!
EE2

 

[gbflyer]

Chapter 3.
With the challenge of action truing out of the way, the bolt was a breeze. It took longer to grind a cutting tool for the face that leaves the extractor in one piece than it did to do the work. With a trued arbor threaded into the back of the stripped bolt, I set up in the steady rest and indicated the bolt body, trued the bolt face and lightly trued the back of the lugs. This was actually most likely a waste of time as the bolt was very good already, and I doubt I improved much.

After a light session of lug lapping, I noticed that I had in excess of .035 between the bolt handle and handle notch in the action, an indicator of potential primary extraction issues down the road. A quick email to Dan Armstrong at ACCU-TIG in Fairbanks, AK was in order and the next day the action was on its way back North for some of Dan’s magic. Figured I’d spring for a nice PTG tactical swept bolt handle while it was there. It was now time to decide what I was going to do with this project.

 

[gbflyer]

Chapter 4.
My dad has a nice old Winchester 70 stocked and barreled by Truman Wilson in Delta, CO. It is set up to switch barrel into a .458 Win Mag and was carried in that configuration for 10 years guiding fishermen in brown bear country (never had to use it). Truman and his wife live in our old house. He is a real rifle builder, professional grade BR standards, and a true gentleman. This thing is an absolute LAZER. It is a sporting rifle that will shoot any ammo you can throw in it into a large, widening hole at 100 yards with virtually no POI change when the trigger – puller is on. A person is lucky to get one in a lifetime so it is locked in the safety deposit box. If I didn’t mention it already in my rambling, it’s a 30-338 Winchester Magnum, the wildcat that was sort of legitimized by the .308 Norma Magnum. As I have a weakness for nostalgia, had a 27” Wilson .30 cal. LV blank sourced from Ragged Hole Barrels in hand, and love to hand load, the search was on for a reamer. I have found in my limited experience that there are a couple of tool makers that are very, very good. A call to Dave Manson at Manson Precision was in the running, but I quickly decided that my budget for this one was getting thin...so I took a glance at the 4D Rental site and behold, Fred had one in his vast fleet, a solid pilot which was a new experience for me as I’ve always used those with bushings. An email exchange confirmed an approximate throat length, and the order was placed. 5 days later, including a Federal holiday, and the little package from Kalispell, MT was in the box, and my action had just returned from Dan with his typical “stack of dimes” welding bead on the back of the bolt. Time to make some chips!

A shameless plug for Dan's work, and in color. A real hand with a TIG torch, and he turns projects around in 3 days or less:

 

[gbflyer]

Chapter 5.
Having never used the Wilson blank, I was excited to get started. John Bredderman at Ragged Hole Barrels was a pleasure to deal with. They stock blanks, so the obligatory 8-12 week wait was null. Communication was excellent before and after the sale, and it was shipped the same day I ordered it. My only small “complaint” about the blank is that the breech diameter was a little thin of the 1.20 spec., but not much. I don’t think it will cause any problems for me, I guess it will be OK to sacrifice a little weight. The steel machined beautifully, and the bore to OD comparative measurements I like to take for my own curiosity were actually quite close. Wilson is a high volume manufacturer and they must use some good equipment, claiming to be hand-lapped. I have one of their barrels on a black rifle in .300 AAC and it’s a good shooter. The reaming went as it should, very nice, even cutting on the flutes and no chatter. I’ve become a fan of the Manson Reamer Holder, among his other great products, and reaming through the headstock. I’ve tried the Bald Eagle and the "hold with a T-handle and push with a center" method using the steady. For my setup, I like the Manson. A quick check yielded a slightly less than .001 variance in concentricity from neck to base with a long reach test indicator and no oversize. I compared a fired case from the beloved Winchester to my chamber which stopped about .350 short from going in all the way. Made me feel confident in my setup. That is as good as I can get. I sourced a beautiful 4140 .300 thick ground recoil lug from PTG, touched tool to the shoulder just a feather, and the stripped bolt fell almost perfectly on the belted mag go-gauge. That always gives me a goosebumps. I turned it around in the lathe for some 5/8-24 threads on the muzzle as I have recently become a suppressor snob and nearly everything I own has provisions to accept the Silencerco Harvester that took a year to get.

 

[gbflyer]

Chapter 6.
Keeping budget in mind, I opted for Stocky’s new Long Range Comp. M50. I’m a big fan of McMillan, and own 5 of their stocks presently. Their quality, professionalism, and service are really without need of further mention. When your questions get answered by a personal email from Kelly McMillan, you know you’ve come to the right place. By no means does the Stocky’s compare in quality, but the price and service they provide is hard to beat. I first ordered from Stocky’s two years ago when I needed a bottom metal. I was having a hard time getting someone to ship via the US Mail…the backbone of rural Alaska. A quick call to a nice lady there and 5 days later I had a new steel bottom metal in my PO Box with no inflated handing fee (Larry Potterfield, hope you see this). The same was true with the new stock, same nice lady, some great service.

This stock is a very quality piece for a budget build. It’s a glass filled resin, very similar to the old Ramline synthetics (a real sleeper stock in my view). It is quite ridged, and comes with the option of different liners for the barrel channel contour as well as an interchangeable cheek riser. It is quite heavy, not something for a sheep hunting rig. It does also come with an aluminum bedding block. I have mixed feelings about the block system, as I’ve never had one fit yet. This one was no different, the action would not seat properly due to machining tolerances of the day on the outside of the old action. This is common in my experience and no fault of the block maker as it is very precise and not overcut as so many drop-in inlets are that I’ve seen. I’d imagine one of Jim Borden’s precision 700 footprints would fit like a glove. When I secured the action screws, the action would pull down and to the ejection port side. The good news is that the aluminum seems to be a good substrate to bed into, and after an afternoon of further fiddling, checking, grinding, and prep, the action was setting stress-free in a fresh bed of Devcon 10110.

The next day, about 19 hours later to be precise, it was time to break it loose. It’s always a relief to me to find out I don’t now own a glue - in. There was minimal clean up, turned out as nice as any bedding job I’ve ever done. I read something once about a blind squirrel and a nut.

For a bottom “metal”, I chose a Magpul’s detachable mag well. It’s built out of a stout polymer with countersunk steel inserts for the head of action screws. It comes with a nice 5 - round polymer AICS clone magazine that will accept up to a 3.5 length 300 Win Mag sized cartridge—perfect for my application. The mag well fit with a bit of minimal fitting, mostly to the plastic itself. It is made to drop into the Magpul Hunter series of stock. I am impressed with the quality of polymers these days. The magazine is very robust, and feeds rounds into the chamber like it was in a vacuum. I was left with a about a 1/16” gap in front of the front action screw area, unsightly and I filled it with epoxy. The rear fit perfectly and there is no “teeter – tottering” on the stock pillars.

Bedding:

Magpul:

 

[gbflyer]

Conclusion (finally).
I am eager to shoot this thing, as of today I am still in a holding pattern waiting for a good cure time on the stock bedding. The weather is nice so it’s very hard not to head to the range with it. Some ammo is loaded and ready. I hope to report that it’s at least half as good as the Winchester. If so, I will label it a success. It comes in at a shade over 13lbs. with a scope and the magazine empty. I have an old M8 12X Leupold with a Mildot reticle that was rattle – canned green at some point in its life that I will use test it with. The scope will sit in some salvaged Talley knock offs that look like they belong on an air soft gun.

Thanks for following along. It’s past time for that nap. For those interested, here’s the butchers’ bill:

Action, used: $330 / with freight
Bolt knob/timing: $110
Wilson barrel: $160
Stocky's Long Range Comp M50: $230
Reamer rental: $60 including freight back to MT
PTG recoil lug: $20
Magpul Mag Well with Magazine: $68
EBay sale of factory stock: [$30]

 

[DrMike]

Pretty skookum setup! You done good. It will be fun to see how it performs for you.

 

[IdahoCTD]

Those look like the rings Remington sells. They have inserts to run 1" or take them out for 30mm. That bottom metal looks pretty nice for plastic. What inlet is it for? BDL, M5?

I've put a lot of rounds through a 30-338wm over the years. We shot tons of rockchucks with them.

 

[gerry]

Great thread, thanks for sharing the process with us. If I read it right you now have a new 30-338 to wring out now 8)

 

[gbflyer]

Thanks for the kind words all. It's been a fun project and I enjoyed doing the write up. The next time I'll try to do better with the camera.

To answer the question about the Magpul setup, it is supposed to drop in a BDL.

I hope this rifle is good with a 200 grain LR bullet of some flavor like Nosler's AccuBond. I will most likely tote it to CO this Fall and leave it there with my cousin and his grandson to play with, assuming it's not a dismal failure.

 

[BretN]

Very nice build and write up. Thanks for sharing it. Let us know how load development goes.

 

[Guy Miner]

30-338 had one heck of a reputation as a 1,000 yard prone rifle in the 1980's. I had the opportunity to employ one for a bit. US Navy rifle, on a Model 70 action.

I like your build!

Guy

 

[SJB358]

Very nice build! That is some serious skill! Congrats on that work.

 

[ShadeTree]

Great write up and excellent work. Your machining skills and understanding of things is beyond my learning curve as of yet. You get extra bonus points for sticking to the do it yourself procedures whenever possible. Great job.

The weld job that Dan Armstrong did for you on the bolt handle is a work of art in and of itself.

Got a question as I'm always trying to learn and some of what you wrote was over my head. In what way was the bolt handle .035 off from the recess in the action? Front to back gap? And why would that cause extraction issues?

Thanks.