Looking at the recent photos, it's pretty clear I'm going to want my short-action 1999's "polished" a bit.

This would be a perfect opportunity for someone who knows what they are doing to step up and offer some package deals. I can see one package for a maximum, full polish job and a second one that is no so all out at a lesser price.

I would think someone could set up a semi-production system to make it easier (less time needed) if he had a committment for so many actions.
What about it guys? Step up to the plate.

Maybe Montana can offer that service....

I was talking to my stepfather while scouting our hunting spot this last weekend about Montana Rifles and how perfect they were for gunshops and individuals who wanted special runs.

Say a big gunshop, or somebody like Cabelas, wants 100 rifles special made, in a not too often chambered round, I'll pick 308 Norma for right now. They call Montana, have 100 actions barreled and chambered, then sent over to Acrabond for stocks. They all arrive, they have a gunsmith go through and do the extra polishing and touch ups. Voila! And with their (montana rifles) willingness to do custom serial numbers they could really get something special.

And the guy that wants his battery similar, you know, same stock shape etc. He decides a list of calibers he wants, his gunsmith orders up the barreled actions, and makes them all look the same but in the different calibers.

Ah, the fantasies that go through my head!

Red

Really services like this do exist. I have not yet seen a montana action yet in person but it does take alot of work to polish an action right. By the time I was done with it... hand polishing, surface grinder, and rust blued it would probably be between 400-500 for the work(polishing between 200-300). ALOT of the steps would be difficult to do in a production style... *done right* that is, without alot of hands on work. Much of this however has to do with how strait and how much you want left alone, or short cutted.
Hmmm maybe some good ideas will come outta this.

Hey Guys: I was under the impression that these Montana Actions were cast and machined to very tight tolerences when i ordered two of the left hand stainless actions. Also, The finish was supposed to be fairly smooth and clean cut on the exterior. Not to mention the interior such as the raceways. Now i am hearing about having to re machine the exterior and face off the breech face etc. Was i duped ? Has anyone recieved their action yet in stainless and how does it look? Montana says that their action is so concentric that truing it is a waste of time. How about it? Swede96.

I don't think you ever buy an action that you just screw a barrel on and its ready to go. I have hacd several rifles built starting with me purchasing the action and they all need some finishing from a competant gunsmith, thats for a $1200 Dakota or a $500 MRC. Shayne

Swede96
The only one I have seen was a carbon steel action. I believe it was finished well enough that if a person wanted to barrel it, give it a mate finish and blue,and put it in a synthetic stock, then it would look as good as any model 700 ADL. Probably better.
Shawn

I may make a 400 H&H out of mine, as I couldn't find a drop box magazine to fit a 404, which I think was real boo boo by Montana...Drop box metal needs to be an option. I may just sell it.

I think if the actions were finished and that would be easy enough for them to do, they would sell better...he states costs to you, but hey, you still gotta pay for a hand polishing and that is expensive, A surface grind is $50. to $75 on top of that.

By the time your gun is together it gets pretty expensive...Why no drop box on a magnum action, makes no since...Why is the gas escape hole below the wood line, so it can blow chunks of wood off your custom stock??, so now we have to cut a notch in the wood thats plumb ugly..big mistake and needs to be corrected immediatly.

The bolt handle sucks, too skinny and FN looking, it should have been a Talley or that type...I just see a lot of unnecessary, costly work that has to be done because the whole thing was not thought out properly to start with, It is a good acton but it has a lot of little unnecessary mistakes that are easily corrected, but they are not being corrected as far as I know....

I have seen action makers come and go, they saturate the small market and sell x number of actions and poof they are gone...I would like to see Montana stick around but they had better take a wake up call or it ain't gonna happen...

IMO they have the right idea, but the wrong approach, and they are appealing to a certain few that want a cheap action at a cheap price, but that market is small, unstable, and these guys only want one action in a life time....The gunsmiths are the market and any time you can save them work, then it is money in their pocket, this action needs to appeal to everyone, make it right and it will be around a long time.. like it is who knows?...just my opine.

Time will see how it all comes about.

Atkinson Hey you want to be real careful disparaging the Montana Actions, pointing out defects or mistakes. I was pretty well savaged by complaining about a defect. pretty scary stuff when some nut case tracks you down and calls your home. quite a few think I should have been sneaky about the defect and not put it on the internet. Not my style. My opinion is that anyone who ships an action in the condition that mine was, shouldn't be in the firearms business. I happen to LIKE my friends and the people in the shooting and hunting sports, they're the greatest, and think they should be warned, and to be careful. sincerely WALEX

Walex,

While I have thanked you for finding the defect again I want to commment that going overboard on conclusions in public is out of line. To say that someone should not be in the firearms business for maybe one mistake that resulted in no more that a UPS charge is not really that productive.

Now Montana has choosen to live or die by the sword (forums) so they must now stay on top of this but let's see what happens ok?

Can you say that you have never hit a dock or dropped something overboard? Your adjective "salvaged" say's a lot to a mariner by the way. What can you tell us about that?

savage 99 Your twisted line of reasoning escapes me. You didn't jump on Atkinson when he gave his disparaging opinions of the MRC actions. Why me? If I took advance payments from the cannery that buys my fish, and then delivered a load of rotten salmon you better believe there would be some hollering going on. The marine radio air waves would be smokin' and every one in the fish business would hear about it. all very public. Just in case no ones ever told you boats are a lot like guns, you make a little mistake and some one may end up dead. By the way I mentioned the bolt sleeve to a knowledgeabe hunting buddy, and he said that he knew a man that had the same thing happen when he lifted the bolt to eject a live round. the sleeve twisted and fired the round. A nearby friend ended up with a face full of shrapnel. He said the man has since passed away, but he will see if the son remembers the details. In the meantime go jump all over jack Atkinson because he essentially said the MRC action was a poorly designed piece of junk and a bunch of mistakes. walex

Walex, first off Mr. Atkinsons name is not Jack, it is Ray. Second, why don't you post a reply or rubuttle to what Bill Leeper and Tom Burgess had to say about the actions on that thread. If I wanted to hunt with a rifle "out of the box", I'd go by a winchester and go hunting, I guess. I wanted to go custom so that is why I will go with an MRC action (not the only route to be sure). I expect the gunsmith who builds the rifle to assure that the rifle performs and functions properly and safely. Funny thing, he expects himself to do the same thing. So I guess I am not to worried about it.

To belaber the point, MRC should make every effort to ensure a quality product is delivered on time and that it operates in a safe and reliable manner. I think that they are making that effort.

Are actions costing 3 or 4 times as much delivered without flaws?

Chuck

P.S. Ray, isn't there aftermarket options for a dropbox magazine?

Ray, I don't understand your post. You say in your post "they are appealing to a certain few that want a cheap action at a cheap price" But at the top of your post you complain about having to pay someone to hand polish it? Saying "By the time your gun is together it gets pretty expensive". I just don't understand, If Montana did it, wouldn't you pay the same, just added $$$ in the action cost on the front end. When I talked to John, He stated that he knew the action wouldn't satisfy everybody, but it seems to me the way they went about it, you can make it as nice as you desire.

On the dropbox issue, It would be nice, but I understand why they don't. There's no market for it. It bet if they made 1000, they'd be lucky to sell 10 this year. The .404 maybe nice, but it ain't exactly popular.

As for the gas hole, I agree ,but they aren't the only ones doing it.

The bolt handle,,, It looks OK to me.

Didn't you get in on the charter issue? If you want out you shouldn't have a problem.

Walex,
After reading your first post on this thread, you sound a little paranoid to me. I don't think anyone is going to Alaska to get you or your friends. What ever happened with your rifle anyway? Was it to your satisfaction?

[ 07-21-2003, 02:58: Message edited by: TC1 ]

In conjunction with TC1's comments, doesn't the PH action address at least two of Ray's criticisms of the action, namely, the bolt handle and drop box magazine.

Perhaps, Dan could touch on this a bit as I thought that the PH would have a drop-box option for it's magazine.

Couple that with the "renderings" appear to show the PH with a "stouter" bolt handle.

As for polishing, IMHO, I think that Montana could serve themselves well by having several "grades" or gradients of polishing as a menu pricing option.

For example:

Grade I - No Polishing, for the gunsmith or person doing it him or herself.

Grade II - Externally polished to ??? grit, etc.

Grade III - Externally polished to a higher level than say, Grade II as well has having the raceways polished/stoned.

Grade IV - Extra fancy best grade, ready for a smith to barrel for a darn fancy custom rifle.

Obviously, the higher the grade, the higher the price.

Just some thoughts from a crazy Texican.

Walex,

As of late I have very little time to get on line and if I did I would have responed to Atkinsons comments also as Ray said in a previous post that there was nothing wrong with the M1999! Then later it was no drop box however that specific feature is not one that applies to me. As to the gas hole it's indeed below the stock line but most actions that I have seen are half way and that might still blow a chip off of a stock. Since I have never seen one that "needed" that hole, thank goodness, I really am going to ignore it. The bolt handle looks fine to me. Must be a matter of taste.

Now back to you, Walex and your repeated statements that MRC has made such a big error. Now we all agree, from what we have read, that indeed the gun your nephew got was indeed made wrong. But for cripes sakes Walex give them some slack.

So again we all thank you for your astute observation.

When we decided to go into manufacturing actions we did so with the idea of offering a good solid foundation for the custom gunsmith to start with. We did a lot of research in the industry and found that an action like ours, priced reasonably would fill a niche that has been ignored for many years. We also listened to hundreds of gunsmiths and gun enthusiasts as to what they wanted in an action and what you see with the M1999 is what the majority told us they wanted. We also realized that we could not satisfy every want and keep the action reasonably priced.
Sure I would like to see the action polished from top to bottom and in every nook and cranny but that would increase the price of the action and where would we be?
I will speak with the owner and my resident gunsmiths about offering different grades of polishing on the actions and get their imput. If they come up with a price to do so, then I will definately post the costs here.
I checked our action against a Model 70 and just by eye-balling (not an exact science) the gas hole on the front ring looks to be in the exact same position on both actions. The cure is to radius a hole in the stock.
The standard Long action was not really meant for cartridges like the 404 Jeffries although it could be made to work. A better solution would be the Pro Hunter action we should have out early next year. We are looking at doing a drop belly magazine (or what I like to call a pregnant floorplate) on the PH and may offer it standard or as an upgrade.

[ 07-25-2003, 21:08: Message edited by: Dan@Montana Rifle Co ]

PLEASE Dan, Make it STANDARD. This action isn't gonna fit in any existing stock anyway. You might as well add the "cool" factor to the action. I want mine to have a perch belly

To start with I did not disparge the 1999 action, I pointed out some things that were overlooked and could easily be fixed..I can do that with many actions...I make changes to Mauser, Win M-70 and others when I build a gun.

I suggested that I would as soon pay a bit more for the action polishing as to have to have someone else do it, since it has to be done anyway...most gunsmith would prefer this I believe. Doesn't that make since to some of you? It certainly save the wait of haveing it done which can run into weeks if not months.

I do believe the gas hole is a mistake and having to radius the stock for it is NOT a solution IMO...That is my one and only unfixable dislike for the action and it should be changed, not the stock lines..

As I said the actions have some minor mistakes, they are correctable/fixable...thats a hell of long ways from "disparging"..

Please read my posts fully if your going to commit on them..