Amen Brother!!!!

Rojelio

Mark Skaggs, now I KNOW I'll be sending you my rifle:
"A little low in the neck"

"Ferrari driving better than you pecker headed chardonnay sipping know it all blow hard"

Now that's good stuff.

Again, Welcome to the board. This really is a fine place.

Weagle

Welcome Mark,
I think I may have a project for you also.

I like your attitude!

That's the best read I've had in a long time!

Thanks, Mark!

Wow!! you have can have my business!!
MSG Chovan

Mark,

It seems I've given your business a real shot in the arm.

I'm hardly a ferrari driving better than you pecker headed chardonnay sipping know it all blow hard. Neither would I consider any working man that opted to spend $50 more for a quality barrel one. All else being equal, a better barrel is more likely to shoot better. Why you would condider some one who wanted the best tool for his money an elitist is beyond me. Do you consider a capenter who buys the best hammer he can afford elitist?

Nobody likes a blow hard windbag. Similarly, most of us have a great deal of disdain for hunters who don't put forth the time & effort needed to be proficient. Especially the ones who think that money will compensate for their lack of preparation. But, that doesn't make everyone that spends a bit more on their tools a ferrari driving better than you pecker headed chardonnay sipping know it all blow hard.

Welcome Mark!

It helps to remember that there are many types of people on this site. There are some who will only use the highest quality rifles, and there are some who are on more of a budget.

I am one of the latter. I am trying to learn the basic smithing stuff (bedding and such) myself because I realy can't justify $125 to bed my old hunting rifle. Most of my guns would be laughed at by many of the more well off gentlemen here, but they work.

That is what I like about the A B barrels. They will work. Not fancy, not the supreme quality required by some, but they will put meat on the table.

I am not trying to run down anyone. I would love to be able to afford a high dollar custom some day. But for the immediate future my budget is limited.

Mark,

I like your attitude. No confusing you with being an elitist. You seem like a gunsmith for the "everyman". Welcome to the forum.

well, it's like this i did not want to start a battle royale over this. and in my orig. post i said i put on a ton of the Adams and Bennett barrels and they are good but if you wanted a real tack driver use the Douglas or Shilen let your wallet be your guide!. i believe the reason i have good luck with the A&B barrels is this. i set the shoulder back on the barrel to allow it to torque against the internal stop on the action the way it was taught and always told it is supposed to. and i know there are numerous people that will argue that point with me, some shoulder it like a remington on the front shoulder of the action?. pre-threaded and short chambered Mauser barrels are made like this with a generic (remington style make up)so the garage gunsmith can just screw the barrel in and torque it down and finish ream and viola you are done. my way requires a lathe. i also take off the A&B crown which i dislike and replace it with a stepped target style crown and deburr the muzzle and then clean it up with some fine emory cloth. so far this has served me well and i won't argue with success. what i had a problem with was the fact you verbally blasted me about the quality of my "rigs" and "that no self respecting Smith would use a pre-threaded and short chambered barrel" another attack aimed at me?. like my Grand ma used to say Son "if ya ain't got nothin good to say then don't say nothin a tall" like i said i work for the common man and heck i could have threaded and reamed every A&B barrel i ever installed. but and maybe you did not know this A&B barrels are made by Green Mountain barrels you know the people that make the Knight rifle and all the other black powder and cowboy single action type barrels out there. and they cut a nice thread and do a pretty fair job reaming them too. and as many as they make i am sure it's done on a CNC machine like a Haaz or a Mazak you know one of those $350,000 cheapo lathes why burn up my tooling when they do a nice job. as far as me being hard on someone who want's to spend the big dollars on a fine rifle is never my intent. god love them especially when they are spending the money with me. but i never be-little someone who wants to build a budget rifle either. because i understand that the money they are spending was hard to come by and they probably had to wrestle the wife to get it and could have probably be used elsewhere. as far as the Carpenter analogy i used to be a carpenter and when i started out buying tools i bought Harbor Freight or no name till i could replace it with something better in some cases i still have the Harbor Freight tool because it has served me well just like a cheaper rifle. i have craftsman screwdrivers and snap-on both do the job both are guaranteed for life but one costs five time more than the other, is one better than the other? probably. are the snap-on worth 5 times more? not to me but someone else probably. the same is true with rifles. a guy builds a $500 mauser with an A&B barrel on it and another guy builds a $5000 mauser all engraved premium barrel and stock etc. they both go hunting and both take a buck. you think that animal knew or cared which rifle he was taken by? Doubtful! are both hunters happy? you bet. that was and is my point!!!! other than the fact i don't and won't take lightly to personal shots at me or my family from someone who i don't know from ADAM!!!!!!

Mark,

I never attacked you or your family. I simply said I saw two of your rigs and wasn't impressed. Just didn't like what I saw. I don't think I attacked your ability by saying that. I merely stated my opinion. I don't personally like forged bolts and both of these had them. There were other things but what I mainly disliked were the A&B barrels. I just have a low opinion of them & short chambered barrels in general.

Also, I said I didn't know why any decent smith would use a short chambered barrel. Never said self respecting. In retrospect it was probably a poor choice of words as I can see how it might offend but then again I honestly can't understand why a smith would use one. Ok, I understand that you may from time to time be required to use what the client brung. Fine, we are all subject to the limitations others impose from time to time. But, given my druthers, I'd pick a blank everytime the choice was mine. Why, simply because I believe that the short chambered barrel allows for too many errors. They are more dificult to dial in properly. You need indicator rods or a very long test indicator to reach the bore. Then there is the possibility that your reamer and the one used to ream the barrel aren't cut the same. I've seen some odd chambers because the reamers were of different dimensions. I've also seen some that were ovalized.

Please describe how you indicate your short chambered barrels in.

and i have no argument with using a blank. and when i actually have time to build a rifle for myself although that's a rarity anymore. i use blanks and usually a Douglas or Shilen and if i find a really good deal on one a Kreiger. just for grins i have a few different barrel makers barrels in here. (short chambered)i have A&B and i have Lothar-Walther. in my 3 jaw universal i have the OD of the L-W barrel within .003 on my dial indicator i also have a 3 jaw independent on the off side of the head stock as well that i can dial in the muzzle of the barrel with too. i have a gear head lathe and 22" is the shortest barrel i can indicate both ends on due to the throat being so long. after dialing in the L-W barrel within .003 on the OD i reached inside the chamber they cut with the dial indicator and the runout is .004 in my book that ain't too bad. if needed i can switch to a 4-jaw independent chuck and get the OD closer. i just grabbed an A&B .308 f-34 and used the same process and had a .003 runout on the OD and .002 runout inside the chamber. i use a floating pilot reamer holder that gives me .030 leway in any direction so i am not worried about anything less than .005 especially on a hunting rifle if i were still working for the oldman and we were still putting up with bench resters this may be a problem for them but not me. as far as factory barrels go the worst i've seen are remington they are way soft and have seen many off center chambers and tons with flutemarks in them from the reamers.

and i forgot to add i have re-threaded and rechambered a ton of those remington barrels and other than the old man i used to work with i think i was the first to do these on Turks and ask around i have seen a boat load of them shoot sub MOA and some of these had runout i don't even want to talk about. so with that being said and i was there to do it and see it you will have a hard time convincing me about dialing in a barrel within a certain dimension or it won't shoot because that boat don't hold water. i liken this to the difference between an AK-47 and the M-16 sure the M-16 is an accurate highly engineered weapon but it don't like dirt and sand it was like that in Viet Nam and my son who is in the 82nd Air Borne said it ain't much better now. the Ak-47 is sloppy and according to it's designer it was made that way on purpose take that thing and drag it through the sand and she still operates.

Mark,

Yes, I've seen the Remington Turk conversion but I hardly think you were the first. Somewhere I have a copy of an older article that lists three common takeoff barrels that can be rethreaded & chambered to fit the small ring mausers. I too have seen some sloppy chambers shoot. It's not something I'd want to pay for though. If I'm paying money for custom work I expect the tolerances to be better than those that the typical factory rifle is supplied with these days. Case in point, your Rem 700 chamber example. Why someone would want to pay to have this replicated is beyond me. The fact that it shoots good is irrelevant, what about safety. An ovalized chamber could be enough out of spec that safety issues become a concern. To say nothing of the fact that brass will be so distorted that full length sizing is a must. I've seen one of these conersions where the fired brass could not be reinsterted into the chamber. The base of the case was severely distorted.

There is a world of difference between built in tolerances and slop due to improper setup.

Thanks & good luck.

quote:

some ferrari driving better than you pecker headed chardonnay sipping know it all blow hard.

Welcome Mark!

You will find that there are a couple of those here at ARF but Im sure you will reckognize them. I agree with your assesment of A&B vs Shaw bbls. My first A&B was recieved the same week, my first and only Shaw took six months!

Have you had any experience with Wilson arms bbls? I would consider them or a Douglas the next step up from an A&B.

Ive got a 35 Whelen on the A&B #34 contour and I like it for that purpose, it is every bit as accurate as my Shaw if not moreso. They also make a good semi-bull bbl for varminting and such.

Mark

Thanks for you feedback. I have a .416 project in the back of my mind that I 'm sure I will use your services.

I put you website on my favorites so I don't lose it.

I enjoy the idea of a workin' man's smith.

Shipping from AZ to you may suck though.

Great to have you aboard on AR.

i called Wilson once for some barrels i need for some Greek Mannlichers i was re-barreling i wanted a lighter barrel and the faster twist than was available from midway and brownells they were very pleasant to talk to and said they could have me the barrels in 2 weeks. the only info i have on them is the fact that they used to make the Ruger barrels and Ruger had some problems with the barrels especially the .25 cal ones and they got a little blistered over the deal and went out and bought their own hammer forging machines and started making their own. i have no first hand knowledge of this i got it from a local barrel maker i have been trying to buy out for a while now. other than that i have seen different posts from people touting them but the cost to me is $5 less than a Douglas for $5 i will stay with Douglas and i know their rep. first hand and have never had a bad one yet. and that goes a long way with me.

and you are right about the slop. with that and the trigger law suits against them i definately have Remington on the bottom of my list of desired actions and the fact that they have chosen to supply them with a complicated trigger and the cheezy add on recoil lug and the off center chamers that aren't concentric with the od of the barrel. i haven't worked on too many winchesters but the ones that i have worked seem to be of superior quality as compared to remington. so remember i dial them in as close as i can and use the floating reamer holder i don't widen the chamber i deepen it. it's not oval, it's not concentric with the od of the barrel and obviously is not setting 100% square in relation with the bolt face. i don't make them i re-thread them. i straighten them out as close as i can and re-use them they shoot well. don't shoot the messenger here call remington and complain. i was just trying to point out that everyone seems to associate remington with quality and that is not so i some cases. and for the most part with all their faults they shoot pretty well. i talked to the old man the other day someone sent him a new take-off remington in stainless to switch to another caliber the chamber was .050 out in relation to the od. wow someone goofed on that one.

Just another thought of mine on this. Good used barrels are not hard to come by. Many of these are at times virtually new. I can usually pick up a used barrel for 25-30 dollars and a vitually new one for a additional $25. Actually I have a short pile of them, and there is my first low cost solution, followed by a trip to a freinds house to dig through his barrel rack. He bought them all way back when Jesus was a corpral, and a steak breakfast with coffee and a horse trade later I will have a barrel if he has a contour and caliber match. Usually a Lilja or a Douglas XX air gauged, but he has some suprises occasionally.

I would have not problem fitting a Remington factory barrel on a rifle if I was in it for next to nothing, and this for me is cheaper than A&B, which means if I am looking at a low end barrel it would be my method.

I also will get my neck out on a limb here and say straight up, I think Remington makes a pretty good barrel. I think they are fit poorly and chambered sloppy on occasion. But depending on the application, a factory Rem barrel, with the chamber recut, thread details addressed, and a new crown and I have seen some really excellent shooters made from these cheap and simple parts.

There are a few extra details to sort out on a used barrel, condition, cleaning up the ooriginal chamber, indexing to hide the stamp etc. But the price is right and the cost an be nothing but time, labor and machine time.

quote:

I also will get my neck out on a limb here and say straight up, I think Remington makes a pretty good barrel.

Amen to that and I believe one can add a number of other production barrels to that list.

There's a reason why the two most accurate rifles (custom or production) comes from cheap guns. The Rem 788 and the Savage bolt rifles.

this is my point exactly. when i got my first lathe and bought my first 5. reamers and gauges i had limited funds so i stayed with 25-06,270,30-06, 338-06,35 whelen those all used the same 30-06 head space gauges see we are saving $ here. then i bought the .243, 308, 7mm-08 see same gauges here too (the.308) so i did the same thing you were talking about i went to the old mans house and said hey i am broke got any barrels i can play with? i had a couple of actions a VZ-24 and A turk and a SAKO L-61R i had collected. i looked under his bench this guy was 84 when we met and had been smithing most of his life and had quite a collection of take off barrels and still does i would grab one here and there and some were new remington or winchester a good number of hardly used Douglas and a ton of new interarms MKx barrels. man did i have fun there for a while i had a different barrel on one of those actions every week. so let me tell you budget smithing and shooting can be a blast. i had a kar-98 someone gave me the barrel was nice i cut it down to 24" re-crowned it and slapped into a ram-line i had found at the old man's drilled and tapped it put a bold trigger in it added redfield rings and bases and a bushnell sport view 3 x 9 bought some 8mm dies and brass some hornaday bullets 150gr. and h-4831-sc powder bore sighted the rifle and went to the range with my first load it shot 4" high at 100yards but dead center and had 2 touching so i went down 4 clicks and has 2 bullets touching i did this all the way down to dead center on the bulls eye. i hung that thing up in my office where i used to work and when my customers came in that were big time hunters and spent more money than imaginable on custom rifles that were dialed in to the cats ass and cost more that the taxes i paid on a $600,000 California house i used to own. they would ask what's that a Weatherby or a Jarrett or a Hart? i'd take it out of the truck and show them an ugly old mauser no bluing no expensive scope just a garage made beater meat in the pot rifle and they would just "you have got to be kidding?" so i know where you are coming from on this i started the same way. dead broke and looking for something to play with. the hell of it is i am still dead broke? but were still having fun. and that's what it's all about.

boy no kiddin on the 788 i put one together for my son on a piece of myrtle wood factory .308 barrel wow does that thing shoot good!!!!!

Mark..I have found this to be a very refreshing thread...and I bet Lubbockdave is enjoying it too.

Not everyone can drop big bucks on a rifle, and do it yourself gunsmithing for the guy that is willing to learn is a great way to save money... finding a GOOD gunsmith that is willing to build an economy rifle is not always easy either..

I enjoy my tinkering, and without doing it myself and using new military, A&B and ER Shaw barrels I would never be able to afford all the rifles I have in my safe... I will freely admit that not one of them looks like I spent 5000.00 for it..but they all shoot better than Ruger, Remington and Winchester rifles I used to own..

Zeeriverrat1

This thread caught my eye because I was in the market for a barrel and money is very much an issue.

A&B didn't offer the twist I wanted, so they were out of the running.

After looking at all the makers, yesterday I ordered a Shaw.

I have a CNC lathe but it isn't set up for threading yet. Shaw doesn't charge for threading the shank. I can do the rest of the work myself.

Shaw doesn't charge for short-chambering, either, but I asked for an unchambered barrel because I want a custom chamber. This is to be a cast bullet rifle so it has some special chamber requirements.

In the end, I may spend more on a custom reamer than on the barrel (or I may make my own reamer, but that remains to be seen). I would rather have an ordinary barrel with an extraordinary chamber and throat than an extraordinary barrel with an ordinary chamber. Time will tell if I made the right choice.

well there Popenmann, Swaw may be the best choice for you then what was their delivery time frame?. i have heard the A&B barrels rifling is not deep enough for the cast bullets? i don't shoot those so i really can't back up that claim. as far as the reamer goes PTG up here in Oregon makes a good reamer and i have quite a few. but he only makes piloted reamers for special orders which ain't a bad thing. and like any tool maker he ain't fast about getting to it and his customer service sucks. i'll just let you know that up front. now Dave Manson also makes a good reamer too and the lady he has on the phone is very helpful and friendly and a pleasure to talk to unlike the staff Dave Kiff has at PTG if you ever happen to need a reamer re-sharpened don't use PTG it will cost darned near what a new one costs call Dave Manson he charges $30 for any reamer any caliber. there is one more local reamer maker to me and i hear he is the best there is and i get this from some picky bench rest shooters. his name is Hugh Hendriksen he is in Talent Oregon and his # is 541-535-2309 i personally don't know him just his reputation and it's top notch. as far as cast bullets go i think a walther barrel would be a good choice too due to the very deep and heavy 4 groove rifling in the barrels like the orig. mauser barrels had. but as they say that's just my 2 cents.

I didn't ask about the lead time on Shaw barrels as this will be a winter project for me and winters around here can be very long.

Supposedly cut rifling is best for cast bullets but that is out of my price range at the moment.

I bought a custom throater from Dave Manson recently and as you said Darla is very helpful and quick to respond. The custom throater showed up after 4 weeks and it was beautifully made. If I buy another custom reamer it will probably be from Dave.

Popenmann..Not long ago I got 2 short chambered 338-06 barrels from Shaw and the wait time was 8-10 weeks. Those barrels have worked out well, and I wasn't in a big hurry for them when I ordered, so it turned out ok for me..

Zeeriverrat1

the last time i used shaw my recollection is it was abt 6 weeks or so but in all fairness, that's what they claim in their ads. they did my 338 (bbl fitting too) and after a few weeks i actually called just to make sure they'd gotten the action. some response like "oh, it's probably here somewhere" but this was abt '90. if somebody advertises 6-8 weeks and it takes 6-8 then you got no gripe. you asked for it. the last barrel i got from mcgowen (a .500 unchambered but turned and threaded for a ruger #1) was on my porch in 2 weeks flat from the day i called to order it.

as to PTG reamers, i got my 500-3"NE from them and had it in my hands in abt 3 days flat. i may be totally recalling this wrong but the way i understood it is all their standard reamers they sell thru midway and the oddballs they sell themselves. as in i couldn't call them direct and buy a 30-06 but the .500 i could. perfectly good reamer and a lot cheaper than clymer is now on specials. i think manson was abt the same range or perhaps a little higher.

and on the .500NE bbl i cut the entire chamber myself w/ a t-handle and measuring from the bbl shank outer edge to the edge of the ctg rim cut the reamer didn't lead off enough that anyone would ever care. less than .001" as that's as close as i can resolve. the bit abt a short chambered bbl having the chamber ruined because the last .010-.020" are cut by hand is a bunch of anal-retentive balderdash, or something that starts w/ a "b" anyway. i mentioned that to a couple of retired machinists w/ over 40+yrs experience each (i'm talking real machinists whose skill level is abt 3 orders of magnitude beyond anything req'd by gunsmithing and who also know guns, one being a part time 'smith for 30 yrs), abt a 6-fluted reamer leading off when finishing out chamber for no more depth than the normal involved and they thought it one of the more stupid things they'd ever heard.

gunsmiths make a living off their services and their very livelihood depends on convincing people they not only NEED some service but that it's absolutely essential. hence lengthened forcing cones and backboring and such in shotguns, re-heat treating mausers (i'm a mechanical engineer so don't bother telling me what some gun expert says; i can make all those determinations myself), and all sorts of other nonsense that basically sell burdened overhead hours of labor.

my hat's off to mr. skaggs who seems a gunsmith of the very honest sort who can do a good job for a customer based on what that customer can afford as well as what he needs w/o some sales job to get him to spend $$ that aren't remotely necessary for the requirements.

but that takes us right back to one of my earlier assertions: each individual must figure out exactly what his requirements are to determine exactly how much he really has to spend to get what he genuinely needs.

well willmckee, my hat is off to you for hand reaming a chamber that deep and accurate. you must be the most patient person on earth!. good job!!!!!. and as for the hand reaming thing i have heard so much about. i have to agree on the Balderdash statement. i was talking to the neighbor the other day about this little verbal battle i had on the site. he is a pistol smith and builds custom pistols for and competes in the steel challenge competitions. so i asked his take on pre-threaded and short chambered subject. and like most of us came to the conclusion he would rather have a chamber cut and threaded on a CNC than by hand. because as you apparently know cutting one by hand and getting it as close as you did is tough by any standard. the next thing i expect some gun EXPERT to tell me is that he will only use a barrel that has been hand button rifled buy driving the button down the bore with a stainless rod with a sledge hammer, oh sure it labor intensive but doing it by hand is the only way a REAL craftsman would do it LOL!!. when my Uncle Ray passed away a few years ago i went to the funeral and then to the grave site service. and then after they lowered the casket in the ground my cousin decided he wanted to cover it with dirt by hand and with shovels. well my dad looked over to the side of the grave and there was a brand new backhoe sitting there running ready to do that very thing. my dad said "son when i die if you try to shovel dirt on me by hand and there is a perfectly good backhoe sitting there i am going to come back from the dead and kick your Arce".

willmckee,

The issue with hand reaming isn't lead off as you call it but rather ovalization and or simply cutting too big a chamber becaus ethe person doing the reaming doesn't keep the rear of the reamer straight. In a lathe you hav ethe benefit of the tailstock keeping it straight.

Look, if people want to do this at home fine. But, I find it odd that others are willing to pay so called smiths to do this. Most people seek a smith's help because they have expectations that the smith will do a better job than they themselves are capable of. there are reasonable smiths out there that will properly dial in a barrel when chambering. Why pay someone to take all the short cuts the fatories do? Why not just stick with the factory rfile then? Also, why all the hoopla about the short chambered barrel being done up on a cnc machine when you then go on to introduce all the error inherent with indicating it in to no better than .005"?????

I've finally got my .257 roberts / Mauser / Adams and Bennett project under way. The link for the project can be found here.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/C...5/an/0/page/0#623435

I talked to Mark Skaggs on the phone and he impressed me as a fellow hunter who understands where I want to go with this project and a gunsmith who knows how to get me there... So he's getting my business on this one.

Weagle

Heh Heh....

Good thread. I enjoy your contribution Mr. Skaggs.

I assemble "economy" hunting rifles......just for the exercise. I like your attitude on the subject.

GV

I got my Adams and Bennett barreled action back from Mark Skaggs the other day and I couldn't be happier. It took 8 business days from the time I shipped it till it was back on my door step from Mr Skaggs. Wow!

The barrel, especially the target crown Mark added looked great and I couldn't believe how well it took the oxpho blue, cold bluing I put on it. It looks as good as any but the really high end factory guns. I only had one box of factory shells but the groups were hovering around 1 1/2" so I've already been hunting with it twice. Brass and dies are on the way from midway.

I'm very happy with the Adams & Bennett and I'm about to order 2 more.

Good Shooting,
Weagle.

I am right now doing an invertory on barrels in the shop.

I have only installed 2 A&B barrels, but there are many more uninstalled that have been sitting here for years.

It would be immoral for me to sell my extra A&B barrels.

There are deep circular cut marks in the bore that catch Copper.

I would like to find someone I really hate, and give THEM the A&B extras.

If I say really bad things about you and promise to be real nasty to you whenever you post, will you send them to me?
Of course I will expect you to pay all postage and insure them too.
Frank

that sounds pretty typical of the older A&B barrels. the inside was a little rough like some Wilson barrels, and Shaw i have had through here. the new ones look as good inside as the Douglas i have been using lately. I took one over to C.P. Donnelly's shop who makes the Viktor barrels and he looked it over and said they look good to him. but obviously the proof is on the paper. but i'll tell you one thing if they would offer a more usable contour more in the line of a #3 Douglas it would boost their sales even more. and fior the $$$$ their a still a bargain. if Weagles barrel doesn't shoot better that 1.5" it will be the worst shooting one i have installed in the past 3 years the .25 ones are like the 22-250 inherently accurate. i think you should try H-4831sc powder and 117 gr. hornaday's with WLR or Fed-210 primers 46 gr. is max. or try some RL-19 or RL-22 i have been having great success with those 2 powders lately.

Say what you will but unless you are threading a blank you are screwing a 60 degree thread barrel into a 55 degree receiver. And don't even get me started on "I have a receiver tap".

quote:

Originally posted by z1r:
Say what you will but unless you are threading a blank you are screwing a 60 degree thread barrel into a 55 degree receiver. And don't even get me started on "I have a receiver tap".

Interesting. As a non machinist that wouldn't recognize a 60 degree thread if it bit me, I've got a couple of questions.

Does the mismatch have any predictable effect on a field grade hunting rifle? Accuracy, stress on receiver etc?( I'm assuming no one is screwing an A&B barrel on a high dollar custom gun.)

If the threads matched, would the rifle perform better?

Thanks,
weagle

Originally posted by weagle:
[/QUOTE]
Does the mismatch have any predictable effect on a field grade hunting rifle? Accuracy, stress on receiver etc.[/QUOTE]

No.

well as my DAD used to say "son" tight is right and too tight is wrong. torque specs. say 60ft # on the barrel to receiver. and as long as the barrel has a crush fit on the internal shoulder and both surfaces contact 100% and the barrel is tight, i see no problem. and have seen no problem. what i have seen a problem with is the fact some people cut a generic thread on the barrel (namely the person on e-bay that re-cuts remington barrels to Turk mauser and feels the need to polish off all the bluing and put an 11 Deg crown on them and claims to recut to the proper 55 deg. thread pitch and short chambers them) and some actions it fits great and some sloppy, real sloppy, thus the importance of cutting the threads to fit the action not a print!!!!. most all the factory pre-threaded barrels i have ran into tend to be a little tight if any thing and after cleaning up the threads on the action with (and mind you i am going to use a nasty word here so close your eyes) "TAP" oh my god i said it!!!!. the barrels screw on very nicely, then i have to set the shoulder back to make them touque up on the internal shoulder. to a true master Machinist i am sure this is a sin!!!! to someone that grew up in the oilfields machining drill pipe and tubing like myself, hey it works and it works well. ??????????? so you be the judge if it bothers you have the smith start with a blank and ask him to cut the threads 55 deg whitworth!!!!!!! but remember this most remington barrels you pull have loc-tight on them ever wonder why? most of the ones that have loc-tight on them have sights on them! ever clean the loc-tight off the threads and screw that barrel back on the action? pretty loose huh and it sure makes it easier to line up the sights when you use loc-tight get her close and let here dry in place. you don't really think they are going to spend the time to put in in the vise and play with it till they get it prefect do you? so with that being said i don't guess i'll loose too much sleep over a barrel that's properly torqued that has a 60 deg thread pitch to a receiver that has a 55 deg whitworth thread on it. once again just my opinion and it ain't gospel.