I just built the stainless steel, left handed Montana Rifle Co. action that I bought on the charter buy 3 years ago. My action has a single digit serial number so it was one of the very first actions made.

As received the action looked good, the upper half was polished lightly with no waves or rounded over lines. Below the stock line the action was as-cast but still didn’t look bad. The bottom metal showed a little roughness from the casting on the exterior but surprisingly the interior was very smooth and clean looking. The stainless mag box is just a folded piece of heavy stainless sheet metal but the lips fit closely under the bottom of the feed rails with even spaces on both sides.

My gunsmith said the front ring and threads were the best he had ever seen on a production gun. He barely skim-cut the front ring and it was dead flat, perpendicular to the threads and the threads were straight to the bore. The rear ring was not perfectly aligned with the front so he made a smoothing cut inside it to make the bolt travel easier.

The bolt he said was a major pain as the lugs were making 20% contact on the left and not touching at all on the right. The contact patch on the left lug was a high spot because as he lapped that down both lugs immediately started making contact and lapped to about 90% contact relatively easily. The bolt face was perpendicular to the bore after the lugs were lapped and the face was flat so he didn't have to touch that at all. The sliding surfaces of the lugs and the rails were rough as a cob but the rails were flat and straight.

I don’t like the looks or feel of the action screws as they feel rough and have regular flat screw heads. The scope mounting screws lined up well. I laid two steel yardsticks through the edges of the screw holes and they stayed parallel and equidistant from the barrel all the way to the muzzle. The screw holes themselves felt rough and some holes felt tighter than others. I ran a tap down each hole just to clean them up and they felt fine after that. The tap moved easily through the holes and didn’t feel like it was doing any cutting just cleaning the holes.

My gunsmith really liked the trigger. He’s a big fan of Winchester triggers and he thought that the components in this action were as nicely made as any Win trigger he had seen lately. He said that the engaging angles were cut correctly and the surfaces required minimum polishing. It adjusted easily and required no changes to the geometry of the mating surfaces. He did not have to reduce the sear engagement to any worrisome level to get it set at 2 Lbs, 4 oz with a crisp break. It actually feels lighter than that to me but we tested it 10 times on his electronic trigger scale and the highest reading we saw was 2 Lb, 6 oz, the lowest was 2 Lbs, 3 oz.

Overall I’m very pleased with this action and hopefully will get an opportunity to shoot it soon to see how accurate the assembly is.


Edit: for Savage 99

The barrel is a 26" krieger #5 in 6.5x284 and the stock is an Accurate Innovations varminter laminate. I'll do a write up on the stock later.

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My gunsmith really liked the trigger. He’s a big fan of Winchester triggers and

That's the lock. Whats the stock and barrel?

Cool Fjold, that was a very thorough and interesting review.

- mike

I think by the time they got to the stainless actions a lot of the poilishing issues had been resolved. That one looks nice. Congratulations!

FJold:

I bought a SS MRC Short Action last Summer and put a Kreiger #2 cut to 24 inches chambered in .300WSM. It is in a McMillian Supergrade Stock. My customer's first 5 shot group was under .5 with factory ammo. He did complain about the recoil. I told him he should be shooting a .308 if he can't handle the recoil. I will put a muzzle brake on it for him in a few weeks. Otherwise he is happy.
Longshot

I have heard that the early actions by MRC were like this. I have heard they have greatly approved there operations and are now making a first class action.

quote:

Originally posted by Longshot:
FJold:

I bought a SS MRC Short Action last Summer and put a Kreiger #2 cut to 24 inches chambered in .300WSM. It is in a McMillian Supergrade Stock. My customer's first 5 shot group was under .5 with factory ammo. He did complain about the recoil. I told him he should be shooting a .308 if he can't handle the recoil. I will put a muzzle brake on it for him in a few weeks. Otherwise he is happy.
Longshot

Get him to practice for 4 weekends with a 458 Lott. When he switches back to the WSM it'll feel just like a .308.

Got three of the charter stainless steel left-hand long magnum actions.

Have one that has been barreled by Shilen with three barrels -- swap barrel style. One barrel in 300 Weatherby, one in 375 H&H, and one in 458 Lott. Put a McMillan stock on it.

Had to send it back to Montana for trigger and action work. As delivered the trigger was notrocious and the safety would not move. They fixed it quickly and it is very smooth now.

Still deciding what to do with the other two actions. Thinking of a 404 Jeffery for one.

Hammer