I just received my Montana Rifleman barreled action chambered in 300WSM. I chose Stainless Steel and a beadblasted finish. Before I get into my issue(s), I do want to say the overall barrel action looks very very nice, and is actually better than I had expected.

Here is where my needing help comes in. I payed to have the lugs lapped, and the action trued. While I dont want to pull off the barrel to see what was done to the action, I can easily look at the lugs. (Pictures of Lugs Below, the final pic is Kenati's remington 700 on the left, and my bolt on the right)

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

So, a fellow forum member and I are questioning these lugs. Montana Rifleman has told me after viewing those same pictures that they look normal for lugs that are lapped, but compairing them to other rifles (Kenati's semi-custom 280 ackley), the lugs look pretty poor.

I knew I was getting a starting place for a good semi-custom rifle when I got into this action, and I need to know where to go from here. First, do those lugs look like something you would expect when you have lugs lapped, or do they look like wear from working the action (which we did without lube a few times when we first got it (I know its bad... I could not wait to play, it only happened a few times)).

Second, I need a recomendation of a gunsmith who would be willing to work on the safety of thise rifle and slick up and finish the action and about how much I am looking at for such a service. I know of several very good gunsmiths which are mentioned on this board, but I dont want to pay an arm and a leg to finish up the action on what started as a "cheap semi-custom" rifle. I dont mind waiting to get it done (I know every good smith has a waiting list), and I dont mind paying well for a good job, but I dont want to get crazy.

Hard to tell from the pics, but I'd say the lugs look lapped, though the job could have been better. I would expect the action to have some lube on the lugs, so galling shouldn't have been a problem.

I'd say figure out exactly whay you want done in slicking up the action, find out what the good smiths charge, and then decide whether you want to have the work done or not. You can always get the work done in the future. Saving $50-100 on a questionable smith would be foolish, since you've already invested nearly $1000 in your barreled action.

You're probably looking in the $100 range to slick up the rails, and tune the trigger.

I think Nate might be implying that he paid for something that looks questionable. I've had similar work done to rifles and judging from personal experience, I was not fully convinced that his particular lug lapping job was representative of what he paid for. Look at the gall-like marks on pic #3.

As far as the action being trued, is there any simple way to tell that Nate could do?

Despite some obvious ambiguities, I do want to say that overall the barreled action looks fantastic and the finish appears to be very nice. The trigger is a little heavy with some creep, but it it crisp otherwise. I know that all of this can be easily adjusted and is built with that in mind. I'm sure it will be a real shooter once it is nestled into a nice stock.

Thanks,

Kenati

quote:

or do they look like wear from working the action (which we did without lube a few times when we first got it (I know its bad... I could not wait to play, it only happened a few times)).

Basically that’s what you do when you lap lugs, wear them in with lapping compound and pressure. You square them first of course. As far as taking it apart and "seeing" what kind of work has been done I think that would be hard to do with out centering it up in a lathe.
From what I can tell in the pictures the lugs look pretty lapped to me. If you already have it bead blasted to a finish you like I would go ahead and stock it and see how it shoots, and as far as slicking it up goes nothing does this like working the action. I really have no idea how much it would cost to have an action "slicked up" but a good person to try in North Louisiana is David Christman. You can reach him at:

216 Rundell Loop rd.
Delhi LA.
71232
(318) 878-1395

Shawn

At a glance, I would say the lugs have been lapped. It is unlikely much was done in theway of truing for a number of reasons which I will get to.
The bolt face is obviously untouched. So this was not done. Whether or not it might have been necessary, I can't say.
There are some aspects of the MRCs design and manufacturing process which makes any kind of truing a bit difficult to address. The receiver threads, face, and inner collar are machined in one setup and are good in relation to one another. Their relationship to the bridge is harder to know. At some time previously I described fixtures which could be made up to check this alignment but I don't know if this info is still available on the board.
Those I have checked have actually been surprisingly good in this regard.
In the course of truing an action it is common procedure to recut the locking lug seats. This is a very difficult procedure on the 1999 action for a couple of reasons. First, the inner diameter of the inner collar is so small as to make access to the locking lug seats very difficult. Second, the locking lug recess is elliptical in shape which complicates things quite a bit. On the bright side, it probably makes no difference at all from a performance standpoint. When it comes to the question of whether or not the action was "trued", I suspect that it was lapped then measured prior to barreling. If the measuring showed no glaring deficiencies it would have been felt that any truing was unnecessary and rightly so. So, my guess is, the action was checked within the workman's capability to do so and found to be, for all intents and purposes, straight. I doubt that it was set up and trued in the context of what a target gunsmith expects to do. I don't know what you paid extra or what you were told to expect so I can't really comment on that.
These actions, like virtually all commercial grade actions, have their idiosyncracies but are, on the whole, a good value IMO. Regards, Bill.

Bill-

Would you/could you comment on what looks like a galling issue in pic #3 as pointed out by nate.

I'm curious to know if you would agree that this "appears" to be evidence of galling (i think so) and what if anything should bo done about it. Would it likely get worse over time?
Any other concerns this would raise in you view?

Thanks

Bob

Bill, you seem to have a pretty in depth knowledge of this action. Is there anyone that comes to mind that you would send your action to other than youself? I dont know how hard it is to ship a gun to canada... is it possible? You have PM

Yea Bill, know any gunsmiths worth their salt?

Chuck