I have been toying with the idea of putting together a 9,3X64 Brenneke and trying to figure out the most cost effective way to do that. First, I could buy a standard length CZ (in 9,3X62 perhaps) and have a smith work it over. Another more expensive option would be to simply buy a Blaser R93. The 9,3X64 is a standard chambering for Blaser. Another option would be to buy a barreled Montana action in that caliber. Their stainless steel barreled action is about $1050 and a blued chrome moly action is about $100 more. Montana will hook you up with a stock maker for a full custom stock or something closer to a drop in with a little inletting.

Anyway, my question is does anyone have a Montana action and, if you do, how well do you like it?

Dave

The problem with a 9.3X64 is the diameter of the cartridge case and the stacking fit in the magazine box. You will be way ahead if you don't have to pay to make feeding work.

At least one outfit swore off making .376 Steyr rifles feed after building their first. The two cartridges use the same head size.

jim

I have a M1999 action, and find it very serviceable. I hear HunterJim's comments about feeding issues, ask at MRC what mag box they use for the 9.3x64. The correct mag box will be 90% of the problem solved.

On the other hand, I'm a Blaser man myself. An R93 is a formidable hunting tool - and one with incredible versatility to boot.

Good luck - mike

Only was able to play with a Montana action. One gentleman brought one of these actions to a rifle match, and I got to examine it.

My recollection is that the 1999 action was well made. A lot of pre 64 M70 features. The M70 trigger is the best of the override triggers. The three position safety that positively hold the firing pin back is a far more reliable system than a unstable sear blocking safety. You can look at the pictures, my recollection he had blended a couple of Mauser safety features. Their web site does not mention them, and I cannot recall them.

The stupid Montana site does not show a clear left side picture, http://www.montanarifleman.com/actions.htm and does not show many pictures of their action, but I recall the bolt shroud was larger than a M70 and would protect the shooter from gases going down the left raceway.

I do not recall if they had given the action a Mauser buffered bolt stop or the Mauser inner collar to the action. I do recall that there were not any inside the receiver machined feed lips.

It is my considered opinion that late model bolt rifle magazine boxes are flimsy and get out of order. Those pre WWII actions with machined in the receiver feed lips never got out of order, unless they were defective from the factory.

Overall my opinion of the Montana action was favorable and thought it would make the basis for a good rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by SlamFire:
... I recall the bolt shroud was larger than a M70 and would protect the shooter from gases going down the left raceway.

That is correct. The M1999 shroud has a gas flange designed to divert any gas escaping down the left raceway. That and it's Mauser size gas ports in the bolt gives it the advantage over a M70 in terms of gas handling.

- mike

quote:

Originally posted by Dirk Hamer:
Could someone please extoll the virtues of an investment cast receiver as compared to a forged receiver?

http://www.charlesdaly.com/html/products/firearms/rifles/field/mauserField.asp

The cast actions are easier and cheaper to make once you get the molds designed correctly.

I have an MRC left handed, stainless, short action that I bought on the charter offer back in 2001. I put a Krieger #5 barrel in 6.5x284 on it. It feeds fine and will shoot with some of the best guns that I've shot.

Forgings are held to be superior to castings, but in my opinion, it is a cultural memory.

The cultural memory of the superiority of forging as a process may have started from the 18th century. 18th century people thought superior metal technology came from iron that had been pounded endlessly. If you read Moby Dick, you will come across the forging of Captain Ahab’s whale harpoon. If you notice the harpoon had to be made of horse shoe nails (iron previously pounded endlessly) and of course had to be quenched in human blood!

The more recent reinforcement of this cultural memory is due to all the Japanese rifles that GI’s brought back from WWII. The Japanese service rifle, even in its worst production form, was a well designed and well heat treated item. The action was actually stronger than any Allied Bolt action. But, many GI’s brought back cast iron Japanese ROTC rifles. The ROTC rifle looks amazingly like a real rifle and will chamber a service round. Firing a service round will blow the thing to kingdom come. A number of WWII vets blew these training rifles up. Because of this, post war literature is full of nasty, negative comments on cheap, dangerous, cast Jap rifles. I believe the condemnation of Jap cast rifles eventually applied to all cast rifle parts, regardless of source. And you will see this in the literature of the 1950’s and 1960’s.

The second is advertising. We have all seen Marine Corp ads wherein a black smith is pounding on a piece of metal, the voice over talking about “forged under pressureâ€, and the sword is eventually quenched and attached to a smart looking Marine Recruit. I think somehow these, and other ads that show black smiths pounding on things, have created the impression that pounding on metal equates to quality.

And one third point. Today’s metal fabrication technology has really advanced since WWII. But there aren’t any technical gunwriters of the caliber of General Hatcher writing books or articles. I cannot think of one gunwriter who has a technical background. Basically they are all liberal arts majors, monkey see, monkey do. So the information presented to the shooting public is sort of fixed in time, to WWII.

But time and technology have moved on. Today’s metal fabrication processes are the best that have ever been. A quality casting made by a quality fabricator is a quality part.

the word you are looking for is porosity...

The best actions, IMHO are billet, carved out of a block of steel.

Then the drop-forged ones, then the castings.

Forging compresses the crystalline structure of the metal, and eliminates any "bubbles" or pits or occlusions.

Billet starts out with a hammer-forged block of steel and merely mills away the excess.

Remember the old joke about "...how do you carve a life-sized statue of an elephant...?". "Start with a 15foot cube of marble and just chisel away everything that doesn't look like and elephant.". That's billet.

A casting can be as porous as a sponge...unless the foundry knows what they are doing and the moulds have been carefully sized to allow for shrinkage rates of the steel used. 8620 is an excellent example of a high quality "castings" steel. Shrinkage rate is well under 1%, it pours well and fills the casting trees. It is like casting bullets, there is not a real good way to pressure fill the trees.

Making a lost wax casting, is a simple three step process.
1. you make moulds, and fill the with melted wax. Then you make "trees", where maybe 20 identical pieces are melted together with a sprue-like latticework. Imagine a Christmas tree with ornaments hanging off it.

2. you dip the tree in a ceramic slurry, several times to coat those wax castings. Hang the trees in a kiln and fire, like pottery. The heat melts the wax, and you have hollow ceramic moulds. Take those trees and carefully pour the molten metal into them.

3. let them cool off, and crack the ceramic off the pieces. This was historically known as the "lost wax process" IIRC. It is used all the time for jewelry, and small machine parts. These parts generally require minimal machining to make good parts...cheap and easy, no?

The process results in parts that are harder to blue or color case harden, altho the case can result in brilliant splashes of various hues...pretty. This is why Rugers will often have purple-ish tones to the receiver.

I do not mean to come off as a "know it all", but I have been thru the Ruger plant and seen the process. Some technical person here can probably explain it better, but this will work as a primer.

Rich
DRSS

Castings can be pourous, to accomodate most engineers will design the parts slightly larger to keep strength. Forgings will tend to be smaller for an action of the same strengths. I.S. described a process called investment casting which is the most used for firearms.

John

I will add that the high speed (10,000+ RPM) turbine blades in jet engines are made using investment castings. Of course they're only pushing 90,000 horsepower operating at 1,500 degrees F so it's not a real test of strength like in a rifle action.

quote:

I will add that the high speed (10,000+ RPM) turbine blades in jet engines are made using investment castings. Of course they're only pushing 90,000 horsepower operating at 1,500 degrees F so it's not a real test of strength like in a rifle action.

Yup. Casting, forging, stamping, all fabrication techniques. Forging makes sense if you are making 10,000 pieces a day. Just, bang, bang, bang them out. Otherwise the dies, the heat, and the equipment cost too much.

Then the machining. Machine time costs money. The closer the part is to final size, the less cost you have. Casting works well in many applications. There are centrifugal casting machines that give quite solid pieces.

A 308 gives a bolt thrust around 4000 pounds, for a thousandth of a second. I believe my truck wheel bearing are under a heavier load.

Firearms technology is pretty straight forward, can get by with plain carbon steels and simple manufacturing processes.

The rest is preference.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bush:

Anyway, my question is does anyone have a Montana action and, if you do, how well do you like it?

Dave

I think my thread got hijacked

FYI, all of MRC actions are cast by Pine Tree Castings a company owned by Ruger and who casts the Ruger actions.

I have a M1999 left hand long action that Brockman used to build me a .416 Remington.

I used this rifle in Tanzania and it worked like a champ!

Before I left for the hunt I put about (I will need to check my notes for the exact number) 350 rounds of factory .416 Remington ammo in it and did not have any feeding issues.

I have four more Montana action in the safe and intend to have rifles built on each of them.

quote:

Originally posted by Dirk Hamer:

quote:

I think my thread got hijacked

Dave, after re-reading the finale of your original post, I can see how that could be construed. I most humbly beg your pardon. I thought that I was trying to help.

Dirk, no apology necessary

I have a stainless long action. Feeds great and is very smooth. There was a slight burr on one of the feed rails that took a couple of minutes for me to smooth....that was the only problem I've had.

I like the first one enough that a second one should be arriving soon either tomorrow or next week....

I've heard people complain about how they are unfinished. The metal is pretty rough below the stock line. That didn't bother me. The rest was great.

JCM

quote:

Originally posted by JCM:
I have a stainless long action. Feeds great and is very smooth. There was a slight burr on one of the feed rails that took a couple of minutes for me to smooth....that was the only problem I've had.

I like the first one enough that a second one should be arriving soon either tomorrow or next week....

I've heard people complain about how they are unfinished. The metal is pretty rough below the stock line. That didn't bother me. The rest was great.

JCM

JCM, Did you get just an action or did you get one of their barreled actions? What do you plan to do about a stock?

Dave

I have a barreled action which I received in Feb 2007 and it looks OK but will not be in a stock for a few more weeks.

The company was sold earlier this year and I have not heard any quality reports since then.

https://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/...=738101676#738101676

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bush:

quote:

Originally posted by JCM:
I have a stainless long action. Feeds great and is very smooth. There was a slight burr on one of the feed rails that took a couple of minutes for me to smooth....that was the only problem I've had.

I like the first one enough that a second one should be arriving soon either tomorrow or next week....

I've heard people complain about how they are unfinished. The metal is pretty rough below the stock line. That didn't bother me. The rest was great.

JCM

JCM, Did you get just an action or did you get one of their barreled actions? What do you plan to do about a stock?

Dave

Dave,

I had the action barreled by them. It is in plain-jane 30-06. I put it in a McMillian Edge Supergrade pattern and skim bedded.

I have yet to shoot it. It has a tighter chamber than my 700 30-06 and the loaded ammo I have is seated out to long....they are seated very long....and I don't want to change the setting on those dies.....the 700 shoots in the .4's.... Just ordered seperate dies for it last night. Maybe I'll find out what it will do in the next 1-2 weeks.

JCM

I have an MRC 1999 and it works fine and I like it.

Yes it's investment cast but that's not a reason to be concerned as the process is also used by Ruger and is totally adequate to the needs of the action.

Given my choice, I'd prefer a totally machined action from a prehardened piece of 4140....but that is a costly way to make them....if it wasn't there'd be lots of folks doing it!

Pine Tree Castings is the Investment Casting Division of Ruger's Advanced Materials Group which casts the Montana Actions.