When I picked up my 338 RUM from the gunsmith he pointed out that the barrel did not line up with the receiver as the thread in the receiver is crooked. Should he have corrected this , or is it difficult/impossible to do?
Mark

It is standard procedure when "blueprinting" an action.

Brownells sell mandrels that screw in the action when barrel is out so face of action can be trued in lathe 90 Deg to threads ,as said ! standard procedure from competent Gunsmith .

this is correctable, BUT you need to direct him to to do it. He should not have just done it himself and then charged you for it and he sure should not have just done it for free. It is only standard procedure if you specify that a full blueprint job be done. If you just ask for a rebarrel, that is what you get.

quote:

Originally posted by Marc_Stokeld:
this is correctable, BUT you need to direct him to to do it. He should not have just done it himself and then charged you for it and he sure should not have just done it for free. It is only standard procedure if you specify that a full blueprint job be done. If you just ask for a rebarrel, that is what you get.

I would respectfully disagree with that. A competent gunsmith should, at the very least, check the thread alignment and the squareness of the receiver face, prior to barreling the action, and then contact the customer if there is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Now the smith is going to have to charge this guy to remove the new barrel in addition to the cost of correcting the problem that he should have caught when he first did the job.

With the lack of judgement already shown by the smith I wouldn’t totally rule out that he cut the barrel shank/threads crooked.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick 0311:

quote:

Originally posted by Marc_Stokeld:
this is correctable, BUT you need to direct him to to do it. He should not have just done it himself and then charged you for it and he sure should not have just done it for free. It is only standard procedure if you specify that a full blueprint job be done. If you just ask for a rebarrel, that is what you get.

I would respectfully disagree with that. A competent gunsmith should, at the very least, check the thread alignment and the squareness of the receiver face, prior to barreling the action, and then contact the customer if there is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Now the smith is going to have to charge this guy to remove the new barrel in addition to the cost of correcting the problem that he should have caught when he first did the job.

With the lack of judgement already shown by the smith I wouldn’t totally rule out that he cut the barrel shank/threads crooked.

Mark Smith's original post does not state why his rifle was at the gunsmiths. Was it there to have a scope mounted, a trigger job, bedding? It is not clear. Until we know why the rifle was at the 'smith in the first instance I don't think we can fault the smith for not trueing, sua sponte, the receiver threads [and performing all the other operations that go with that, as described below].

There is one caveat here: if the rifle was rebarreled by the 'smith, then I agree he did not perform competent work because he failed to see that the threads were not concentric prior to rebarreling. In that case he should have acertained the crooked threads and advised the customer of the problem before proceeding further so the customer understood his options for correcting the problem.

If the customer had requested a blueprinted receiver in the first intance, then I would agree the 'smith is grossly inept because a properly blueprinted receiver does not have crooked receiver threads.

As we all know and understand, recutting crooked receiver threads [properly done with single point tooling] is going to slightly increase the
inside diameter of the receiver at the threads, which will make the original barrel unusable unless the threaded barrel shank is cut off, and the barrel rechambered and rethreaded.

Hence, in my opinion a 'smith should not undertake truing the receiver unless the customer specifically requests blueprinting of the receiver. As stated above, the 'smith certainly should advise the customer that his receiver threads are not concentric prior to rebarreling, thus giving the customer the option of fixing the problem.

My .02 worth.


Jordan

quote:

Originally posted by Rick 0311:
A competent gunsmith should, at the very least, check the thread alignment and the squareness of the receiver face, prior to barreling the action, and then contact the customer if there is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Exactly! The customer has every right to expect that the guy he chose to do the job, will do it right. That includes being notified if there are unforseeable costs involved in completeing the job.

Jordan,

You are correct since the guy did not state what work had been done by his smith.

quote:

Originally posted by Jordan:

Mark Smith's original post does not state why his rifle was at the gunsmiths. Was it there to have a scope mounted, a trigger job, bedding? It is not clear. Until we know why the rifle was at the 'smith in the first instance I don't think we can fault the smith for not trueing, sua sponte, the receiver threads [and performing all the other operations that go with that, as described below].
Jordan

How would Mark Smiths gunsmith know that the "thread in the receiver is crooked" unless he looked. So, if he looked and noticed there was a problem, then he should have notified Mark Smith of the problem before sewing it up. That's how a competent gunsmith would handle that.

It should also be remembered that the receiver face can be off even if the threads are square...so it is also premature to assume that the receiver threads need to be recut.