OK, so one brings the barrel and action up to firm "hand tight", then how much should the action be turned to final tightness (1/8, 14/ 1/2 turn?)?
How much will that close headspace in thousandths?

LouisB

Nosey minds want to know!

TC Louis---

Theres a BIG thread about this about a month old. I hope somebody remembers the topic it was under. I can't.

I bump it up, loosen and bump harder and count on .002 draw-up. I have a heavy wrench but only a 12 inch handle. I have not the foggiest idea what the torque is.

Jack Belk you are dead on target. There is no reason to twist that barrel in to the point where it puts so much stress on the receiver thread section 90 degree joint with the re-inforce (Diaphragm) that it can eventually fail in shooting. That entire section gets flexed in firing. If it did not then strain gage pressure testing wouldn't work. In front draw barrels like most of the non Mausers the result was flexing of the scope mount screws. Inasmuch as these were made of bessemer stock steel and lightly carburised the mounts continually worked loose because back in the bad old days of one size fits all bases and " Hunter-Finish" receiver polishing there was often little more than 10-15% actual contact, base contour to receiver contour, and that hit and miss. Iodine on the screws obviously didn't solve anything because the screws stretched making them loose,NOT backing out. Precision grinding the area to be under the base was of great help. What finally led to precisely machining the base contour -ultimately simply making them from scratch was the (then) astounding revelations presented by the application of some mysterious material sold by Magnaflux Corp. which we called "brittle paint". This in the areas where the mounts bolted on. The next part of the solution was to make the screws ,too, out of heat treated alloy steel. A big help in those bad old days was to solder on the bases ( 50/50 lead tin solder) To be effective you needed at least 75% area contact.