Bergara & their new... No Gunsmithing Barrels...
this job in ‘slow motion’, taking the ultimate care and attention to detail in all machining stages, never needing to ‘cut corners’ to match the time/money criteria laid down by professional gunsmiths.
He explained to me how the time and hence fee charged by various gunsmiths often varies widely, purely down to some of this balance and one other quite surprising facts – including the action being re-barrelled. Much as he tried to avoid the issue (I know Vince loves Remingtons for the way they are the access route for many, including me, into this sport of ours) but, as the consummate precision shooter, engineer and machinist, he winces at the thought of working with one. Had it been a BAT or Stolle, I’m sure his eyes would have glazed over and I now know partly why. I LOVE Remington 700s, at 50 years old this year they are the granddaddy of nearly all modern precision rifles with their footprints and design ethos but, they are as individual as women – in that no two are exactly the same - and in the same way, individually unique and challenging if a precision job is to result.
A love/hate relationship If you are working on a £1000 BAT action or something similar, the significant measurements, to within one ten thousandth of an inch, are all carefully laid down in the technical specification of the action - consistent from one action to its brother three years from now. The action-face is square to the bolt raceway which is central to the barrel-threads – exactly as it should be! When working with a factory rifle, such as the common old Remington 700 used here, all the measurements to do with the thread on the barrel tenon, bolt nose clearance and headspacing of the cartridge must be done after taking careful measurements off the actual action being used – some are good and some are not so good! With the threading/chambering job on the BAT or Stolle - you don’t even need to have the action in the room.
With a Remmy (much as I adore them) the action is continually measured and offered up to its barrel- thread to check fit and tolerances at all stages. I know any factory-made mechanical component has a plus or
minus tolerance on it but these are all unique. I have renewed respect and understanding for those who do this job day in and day out and, if the same machining care and attention is given to both actions during a re- barrel job, the Remington WILL take longer, if done to the same standard.
Anyway, from back in September, the precise numbers of threads per inch and tenon diameter evade me but the barrel tenon (the section that screws into the action) is threaded and has a shoulder cut into it that will meet the face of the closed bolt with a few thousands of an inch to spare.
Being a Remington, the face of the barrel, before chambering, needs to incorporate a bolt nose recess (part of the iconic `three rings of steel`) and allowance must also be made for the thickness of the recoil lug, in this case a precision ground custom stainless-steel one from Brownells.
Machining techniques and styles are often personalised with experience but, there are certain unbreakable rules associated with thread pitches, angles and feed-rates for standards as near as perfect to be achieved. Vince had a few well thumbed, beautifully oil and fingerprint stained `bibles` of equipment settings and records of previously worked-on actions to ensure correct specifications for subsequent barrels. He has the time to be confident in his exclusion of all considered variables and if this means slowing down the work rate, so be it.
So, we now have a threaded barrel that fits the action and mates to the bolt with the correct bolt-nose clearance - the next stage is to cut the chamber. This is where real patience comes in, as we were not using a roughing-reamer to rip out 95% the chamber but a finishing reamer that must be driven more carefully to maintain the finish and of course, not destroy this precision tool.
As most of Vince’s reamers are tight-neck or wildcats of some description, we had to borrow our standard 243 reamer from Osprey Rifles. The reamer is attached to the tailstock of the lathe via a floating reamer-holder that allows the tail of the tool to position itself precisely to the last ‘n’th degree whilst it is guided from its tip by a ‘pilot’ - carefully selected
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